‘Nightfall’, Emma Ashmere (Australia)
‘A Hurricane and the Price of Fish’, Shakirah Bourne (Barbados)
‘Resurrection’, Hilary Dean (Canada)
‘Miss Coelho, English Teacher’, Kiran Doshi (India)
‘The Night of Hungry Ghosts’, Sarah Evans (UK)
‘The Ol’ Higue on Market Street’, Kevin Garbaran (Guyana)
‘Madam’s Sister’, Mbozi Haimbe (Zambia)
‘Pengap’, Lokman Hakim (Malaysia), translated by Adriana Nordin Manan
‘Screaming’, Harley Hern (New Zealand)
‘Oats’, Rawiya Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
‘Deserted’, Erato Ioannou (Cyprus)
‘Amid the Winds and Snow’, Tyler Keevil (Canada)
‘Extinction’, Alex Latimer (South Africa)
‘My Mother Pattu’, Saras Manickam (Malaysia)
‘The Blessing of Kali’, Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu (Kenya)
‘Love-life’, Nuzha Nuseibeh (UK)
‘The Bride’, Adorah Nworah (Nigeria)
‘Bluey’, Maria Samuela (New Zealand)
‘Death Customs’, Constantia Soteriou (Cyprus), translated by Lina Protopapa
‘How to Marry an African President’, Erica Sugo Anyadike (Tanzania)
‘Granma’s Porch’, Alexia Tolas (The Bahamas)
Now in its eighth year, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. The shortlist was chosen from 5081 entries from 50 Commonwealth countries, and includes two translations into English, one from Greek and one from Malay.
Chair of the Judges, British novelist, playwright and essayist Caryl Phillips said:
‘The vitality and importance of the short story form is abundantly clear in this impressive shortlist of stories from around the world. These authors have dared to imagine into the lives of an amazingly wide range of characters and their stories explore situations that are both regional and universal.
Almost as impressive as the number of entrants and the quality of the shortlist, is the amount of work that the panel of judges have invested in this process. They have read carefully, debated with great sensitivity, and been mindful of cultural traditions as they have collectively reached their decision.
Compared to many literary prizes, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is still young. However, with each passing year the prize gains importance within the literary world. It offers a unique opportunity to read and think across borders, and to connect imaginations from around the globe. It has been a great honour to be a part of the judging of the 2019 prize.’
‘Nightfall’, Emma Ashmere (Australia)
An abandoned Irish immigrant living in the Adelaide Women’s Destitute Asylum refuses to answer questions about the disappearance of a music hall dancer.
I’m looking at Miss Upfield dressed in her widow’s weeds, black feathers, black lace, black hat, crepe scratching at her neck. I stare at the curled paper face of Octavia staring up from Miss Upfield’s glove. It’s a fair likeness. Perhaps Miss Upfield really is Octavia’s sister. Her face is shaped the same. The shape of a heart. Miss Upfield smiles. She’s kept all her teeth except for that gold one at the front.'
Emma Ashmere’s short stories have appeared in The Age, Griffith Review, Sleepers Almanac, Review of Australian Fiction, Spineless Wonders, three Brisbane billboards for #8wordstory, and shortlisted for the 2018 NUW/Overland Fair Australia Prize and 2019 Newcastle Short Story Award. Her novel The Floating Garden was published by Spinifex Press and shortlisted for the 2016 Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA). She lives in northern New South Wales, Australia.
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‘A Hurricane & the Price of Fish’, Shakirah Bourne (Barbados)
The unlikely romance between a no-nonsense market vendor and a retired swindler has dire consequences on the price of fish during hurricane season.
If you left Chattel Lane in 1960 to go drive bus in London, and come back to visit your now middle-aged children and show off your polished British accent, you would find that on entering the village, the piece of wood with ‘Chattel Lane’ slashed on with white paint, was still hammered onto the telephone pole.
You would realise that the chattel houses, originally designed to be moved at Massa’s beck and call, were still squashed together along the main road and painted in the same purple, green, blue and yellow, though the colours were now faded, and a few now had heavy-looking satellite dishes sinking into the feeble burgundy roofs.'
Shakirah Bourne is an award-winning Barbadian writer and filmmaker. She is a recipient of the Governor General Award for Excellence in Literary Fiction for her short story collection In Time of Need, and a finalist for the 2018 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. Her short stories have been featured in several journals including Adda, The Caribbean Writer, NIFCA Winning Words Anthology, POUI, and Journal of Caribbean Literatures.
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‘Resurrection’, Hilary Dean (Canada)
The eighth-graders at St. Joseph’s School are putting on a Passion Play. But can they trust the class clown with the role of Jesus?
“Rocky Balboa flunked school too,” he said. “I’m just like him. An Italian stallion.”
He was fifteen. We turned thirteen one at a time that year and he remained a head taller than the tallest boy. He had real muscles and he shaved. When we learned about The Voyage of Puberty in Health class, he looked like the drawing on the pamphlet’s last page.'
Hilary Dean was the winner of CBC’s Canada Writes award in 2012, and has won EVENT Magazine’s non-fiction contest twice. Her work has received the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Fiction, appeared in This Magazine, Matrix, and The HG Wells Anthology, and shortlisted for the Journey Prize. Dean’s recent film,So You’re Going Crazy…aired on CBC television’s Documentary Channel for ten years and is currently utilized in healthcare curricula worldwide.
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‘Miss Coelho, English Teacher’, Kiran Doshi (India)
A story of an indomitable teacher running into unexpected difficulties after retirement—and overcoming them her way.
Dear editor,
Better late than never, I suppose. But the government could have given Miss Coelho the award twenty, thirty or even forty years ago, in fact the day she became a teacher and joined St Patrick’s School for Girls. For even then she knew better English than anybody else - and knew how to teach it, whether to a class of forty or to a single lost child like me. She mesmerised us with her talk, her walk, her stories, her sudden questions, her praise . . .'
Kiran Doshi is a retired Indian diplomat and educationist. His last novel, Jinnah often came to our House, received The Hindu prize for the best work of fiction published in India, 2016. His earlier published works include a satirical novel set in the world of India-Pakistan-USA relations, and a collection of diplomatic tales written in comic verse. He lives in New Delhi.
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‘The Night of Hungry Ghosts’, Sarah Evans (United Kingdom)
It is the fifteenth day of the seventh month as Li Wei steps out onto the muddy sandflats of Morecambe Bay. Invisible amidst the happy chatter of those who belong here, surrounded by quicksand and at risk of swift-turning tides, Wei is tormented by ghosts from his past.
Sarah Evans has had many short stories published in anthologies, literary journals and online. Prizes have been awarded by, amongst others: Words and Women, Stratford Literary Festival and the Bridport Prize. Her work is also included in several Unthology volumes, Best New Writing and Shooter Magazine. She started her career as a theoretical physicist before moving into economics and policy advice. She and her husband live in Welwyn Garden City, UK
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‘The Ol’ Higue on Market Street’, Kevin Garbaran (Guyana)
Folktales and Jumbie stories take a dark turn after young Devika decides to investigate the rumours of an Ol’ Higue living in her village.
Kevin Garbaran grew up in the village of Zorg on the Essequibo Coast. He spent his high school years at President’s College, where he developed a love for literature. After college, he pursued a degree in Environmental Studies at the University of Guyana, while working part-time as a server. After graduating with his BSc in 2018, he chose to continue working part-time in order to dedicate most of his time to writing. This is the first time he has entered a short story competition of any kind.
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‘Madam’s Sister’, Mbozi Haimbe (Zambia)
The arrival of madam’s sister from London causes upheaval within the household, but has an unexpected bonus for the guard, Cephas.
Mbozi Haimbe was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia. She completed an MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge in 2018, and is currently working on a collection of African inspired short stories. Mbozi lives in Norfolk with her family.
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‘Pengap’, Lokman Hakim (Malaysia), translated by Adriana Nordin Manan
The story reflects the definition of ‘stuffy’ (pengap) from the characters’ views who refuse to migrate to a stuffy city before the definition overwhelms the whole structure of the story.
Lokman Hakim is an author of several books, comprising of novels, collections of short stories and poetry, with genres spanning from science fiction, thriller, young adult and fantasy written in the Malay language. His short stories have been published in local newspapers, literary websites and national literary magazines. He works as an infrastructure engineer for a construction company.
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Adriana Nordin Manan is a writer, playwright, translator and researcher. Born, raised and based in Kuala Lumpur, she is passionate about storytelling and the expanse of stories as bridges across cultures, imaginations and human desires. Trilingual in Malay, English and Spanish, Adriana has a Masters in Politics from New York University. She is also a graduate of Colby College and the United World Colleges (UWC) movement.
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‘Screaming’, Harley Hern (New Zealand)
A visit to a New Zealand rest home and a kapa haka performance force two friends to confront deceit, identity and endings.
Harley Hern is a writer, artist and editor whose fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in various anthologies and journals. She has a Master of Creative Writing (Auckland University), is administrator for the Academy of NZ Literature (Te Whare Mātātui Aotearoa), senior editor of Geometry journal and for two years was administrator for NZ National Poetry Day. She lives on a rural block where she chainsaws firewood, fixes fences, paints bright art and trains horses.
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‘Oats’, Rawiya Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
Fearing for his life, Forceripe Frederick obeys the blind obeah man after breaking his window. His request: read to him. This is a story about an old man who keeps oats in his pocket and a troubled teen who learns why.
Look. I know I’s only nineteen so I don’t have no plenty plenty life experience to talk bout, I ent know much and I ent see much, but is take a man nine months to born and a second to die. What I saying is thing is happen and is happen fast and when that change come it does come and you can’t go back.'
Rawiya Hosein is a writer, musician and an avid cook. Her influences include Milton, Shakespeare and V. S Naipaul as well as Jung, Freud and the American literary critic, Harold Bloom. Rawiya is also deeply passionate about tea. As of 2019, she is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Literatures in English and Linguistics at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
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‘Deserted’, Erato Ioannou (Cyprus)
When war strikes, eighty-year-old Anna stays in her deserted town to defend her home. Soon, she will be possessed by superhuman youth and being alive takes a whole new meaning.
Erato Ioannou studied English Literature at the University of Cyprus and has an MFA in Creative Writing from UNC Wilmington. She is the associate editor of In Focus literary journal. Her writing has been published in anthologies and journals in Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and the UK and she is the author of Cats Have it All, a collection of short stories. Most recently, her work has been featured in So Many Islands Anthology. Erato’s novel Muerta, after numerous drafts, is finally complete.
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‘Amid the Winds and Snow’, Tyler Keevil (Canada)
A story told through fragments of consciousness and memory, ‘Amid The Winds and Snow’ pieces together the puzzle of a tragic accident in one of the most beautiful and desolate places on Earth.
Letting herself drop, laying flat. Perplexed. She was not indoors, then. Not in a hospital. And not on a mattress. But something soft and white. And cold. Gritty and grain-like. Clear crystals. Snow. It was snow.'
Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver and in his mid-twenties moved to Wales. He is the author of several books and his short works have appeared in a range of magazines and anthologies, including The Missouri Review, PRISM: International, and Planet: The Welsh Internationalist. He is a past recipient of The Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize and the Writers’ Trust of Canada / McLelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
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‘Extinction’, Alex Latimer (South Africa)
Soon after his mother’s death, a boy meets and befriends Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, discoverer of the coelacanth. Bonded by a shared surname, they help each other to come to terms with love and loss.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello.”
It was a woman, her voice accented and thin. “I’m looking for Marjorie,” she said.
The duck was hot against my ear.
“She’s dead,” I said.'
Alex Latimer is a writer and illustrator. His picture books for children have been published and translated around the world. He has written one novel, The Space Race, and has co-written two others, South and North – both with Diane Awerbuck under the pen name Frank Owen. Alex is currently working on Megafauna, a collection of short stories.
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‘My Mother Pattu’, Saras Manickam (Malaysia)
The story explores a mother’s violent jealousy and envy towards her daughter who finds no one can protect her from the abuse except herself.
Saras Manickam is a freelance writer, language and Creative Writing teacher whose short stories have been published in Malaysian anthologies. She won the DK Dutt Memorial Award for Literary Excellence in 2017, and hopes to bring out a collection of short stories by the end of 2019.
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‘The Blessing of Kali’, Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu (Kenya)
An unforeseen tragedy strikes a young family bringing with it a tumultuous upheaval of spirituality and faith. For the nonbeliever, death awakens the possibility that perhaps, God is real.
She was born in a bathtub filled with warm water. I had never seen that even though at 65 I thought I had seen everything. I was told that the new way to give birth is in water. I was told that it’s soothing both for mother and child. I was told a quiet atmosphere is important. I was given a chair and asked to please stay in the corner and not speak, and I did as I was told.'
Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu was born in Nairobi in 1977. She holds a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University and has worked as a journalist in New York City, Washington DC and Boston. In 2017, Irene graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and three children. Lucky Girl is her first novel.
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‘Love-life’, Nuzha Nuseibeh (United Kingdom)
A half-love story for the millennial generation.
Nuzha Nuseibeh is a Palestinian-English doctoral student at Oxford University, researching the sociology of education. Her interests include issues around identity, inequality, queerness, and learning. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading Ben Lerner or binging on Jane the Virgin.
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‘The Bride’, Adorah Nworah (Nigeria)
A Nigerian bride panics when a stranger poses as her groom. Her loved ones insist that the wedding must go on, and it does.
But you are the bride.
Your name is Somadina, Adina for short.
Sometimes, your name is baby, or Din Din, or the black girl, or the quiet girl, or her, or the chubby one, or bitch, depending on the mouth, or the mood.
Today, your name is the bride, but the man in the powder blue Toyota RAV4 is not the groom.'
Adorah Nworah is an Igbo storyteller from Anambra State in Eastern Nigeria. She earned her juris doctorate from Temple Law School in 2018, and currently practices commercial real estate finance law in Philadelphia. Her short story, Broken English, was long-listed for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa prize.
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‘Bluey’, Maria Samuela (New Zealand)
When Rosie meets her dad’s mate Bluey, she’s swept up in a journey that exposes some past truths. Bluey makes sense of the adult world through the innocence of a child’s eye and their ever-inquiring mind.
“Lock the doors, bub. Keep them locked, remember. Don’t open the doors for no one, k? Stranger danger, don’t forget.”
Dad wouldn’t leave me alone until I locked the doors so I leaned over and pushed down the button on his side of the car. All the locks went click at once and then I watched Dad walk up the drive towards the tinny roof.'
Maria Samuela writes for children and adults. She’s been published in the School Journal and had stories translated into five Pacific languages. Her stories are broadcast on National Radio and her adult stories have appeared in Turbine, Sport, and Takahē. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University and was the 2018 University Bookshop / Robert Lord Cottage summer writer in residence. Maria is of Cook Islands descent and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She is completing her first collection of stories for adults.
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‘Death Customs’, Constantia Soteriou (Cyprus), translated by Lina Protopapa
This is a story about the women of Cyprus, mothers or wives who were left to believe that their beloved persons were missing after the 1974 war, while the state had clear evidence about their death. It is a story of death customs, memories, bitterness and justice.
Constantia Soteriou was born in Nicosia in 1975. Her first novel Aishe goes on vacation (Patakis, 2015) received the Athens Prize for Literature. Her second book Voices made of soil (Patakis, 2017) was included in the short list for the Cyprus Literature Awards. She has written plays for independent stages and the Cyprus Theatre Organization.
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Lina Protopapa lives in Nicosia, Cyprus, where she works as a translator and cultural critic.
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‘How to Marry an African President’, Erica Sugo Anyadike (Tanzania)
How To Marry an African President is a story about an ambitious First Lady who is vilified by society, when she attempts to take over the reigns of power from her ageing husband, after he murders her lover.
Erica Sugo Anyadike works in television. She also writes short stories and has been published by Kwani, Writivism, Femrite and Karavan. Whether she’s writing for television or writing prose, Erica’s stories place African women at the centre of her narratives. She is particularly interested in complex representations of African women – rejecting simplistic portrayals of them in binary terms. She is currently writing a novel.
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‘Granma’s Porch’, Alexia Tolas (The Bahamas)
Abandoned by her father on her grandmother’s porch, Helena fumbles along the delicate border between adolescence and adulthood, guided by the past traumas of her friends and family and her troubled first love.
I was on the porch when he walk over. Uncle Gully sent him to beg some oil for frying fish. When I see him, my heart catch fire.'
Alexia Tolas was born and raised in The Bahamas. Her writing explores the intricacies of small-island life, particularly from the female perspective. She draws heavily on local folktales and mythologies in order to convey realities silenced by tradition and trauma. She is a graduate of the former College of The Bahamas and currently teaches Literature.
