Revisit the 2015 prize

Commonwealth Short Story Prize

2015

The 2015 prize winner

Jonathan Tel
The Human Phonograph

Jonathan Tel was announced as the overall winner of the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story ‘The Human Phonograph’.

‘I’m writing a collection of stories set in contemporary Beijing. One of my characters is a hustling property developer; the better to understand him, I wrote a back-story telling the tragic romance of his parents on a nuclear base in Qinghai Province in the 1960s, and it is this story – ‘The Human Phonograph’.’

 

Jonathan Tel

‘Maybe not surprisingly, the shortlisted stories from the UK and Canada are all deeply marked by foreignness, by the lonely or crafty or desperate ways we humans figure out how to live in places that are not home, that must become home, and that can never be anything but difficult.’

 

Marine Endicott, Judge

Regional winners

We are delighted to announce this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winners!

The 2015 Prize attracted nearly 4000 entries – a record number. After an initial sift by a team of international readers, six acclaimed writers – Leila Aboulela, Fred D’Aguiar, Marina Endicott, Witi Ihimaera, Bina Shah and Romesh Gunesekera – chose a shortlist of twenty-two stories.

From this shortlist, they selected five regional winners – one each from Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean and the Pacific. Chair Romesh Gunesekera describes the process:

‘We had a strong shortlist of stories from around the world that excited the judges and provoked a lively, stimulating set of discussions. The judges were looking for well-crafted stories that were compelling and original. The standards were high. We wanted stories that would engage us and make us rethink our notions of form, language and what mattered. The winning stories did all of that and more. Thank you, writers.’

Here are the regional winners:

  • Pacific
    Famished Eels
    Mary Rokonadravu
    Fiji

    She is off the coast of Lifou in New Caledonia counting sea urchins when her father suffers a stroke. He is the keeper and teller of stories, now he calls on her to finish his task.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘Sometimes you start reading a story and, before you know it, bang, you’re hooked. This is the case with ‘Famished Eels’ by Mary Rokonadravu, a beautifully written and evocative story which, while set in Fiji, crosses nations and continents.’

    Witi Ihimaera, Judge

    Mary Rokonadravu is Communications Manager at WWF-Pacific based in Suva, Fiji. She finds inspiration in the lives of ordinary people and communities, particularly untold stories of people in the frontlines of climate change and environmental degradation in the Pacific islands region. She believes in the power of culture and the arts, particularly storytelling, to inspire transformation in society. She loves cats.

    ‘I belong to peoples at the frontlines of loss and ultimate disappearance without having found a voice. It is not an easy space to inhabit. For too long, others have told our stories. I hope that for the Pacific region, hidden and struggling writers will find this win as proof that we do not have to leave our homelands in order to tell our stories. It is possible to dream, write, and speak from the islands.’

    - Mary Rokonadravu
  • Africa
    Light
    Lesley Nneka Arimah
    Nigeria

    A mother’s absence grows the bond between a father and his daughter. But when the world weighs in, the ties that bind them together begin to fray.

    ‘The African stories on the shortlist range from a satire on gender tensions to a meditation on bereavement; from internecine warfare to a comedy about childhood punishment. ‘Light’ is warm, beautiful and deeply felt. Fluid and delightful, its theme of parenting across continents will strike a chord with readers throughout the world.’
    Leila Aboulela, Judge

    Lesley Nneka Arimah grew up in Nigeria and the UK. She currently resides in the US in the state of Minnesota where she spends the winters in hiding, working on a novel and a collection of short stories.

    ‘I was delighted to hear that I’d won the regional prize. Writing sometimes feels like yelling into a void and this was the pleasant shock of having a voice shout back “I get what you’re doing and I like it!” Especially with this particular story and it’s wry, tongue-in-cheekiness. It means a lot to me.’

    - Lesley Nneka Arimah
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Canada & Europe
    The Human Phonograph
    Jonathan Tel
    UK

    A woman is reunited with her geologist husband at a remote nuclear base in the remote North-West of China during the 1960s.

    ‘Maybe not surprisingly, the shortlisted stories from the UK and Canada are all deeply marked by foreignness, by the lonely or crafty or desperate ways we humans figure out how to live in places that are not home, that must become home, and that can never be anything but difficult.’

    Marine Endicott, Judge

    Jonathan Tel is writing a fiction book set in contemporary China. It is composed of ten chapters, each of which may be read as an independent story, but which link together to form a novel. The winning story is extracted from this work. The opening chapter, ‘The Shoe King of Shanghai’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Award 2014. He is looking for a publisher for this book. He is also writing a book of poems about Berlin.

    ‘I’m writing a collection of stories set in contemporary Beijing. One of my characters is a hustling property developer; the better to understand him, I wrote a back-story telling the tragic romance of his parents on a nuclear base in Qinghai Province in the 1960s, and it is this story – ‘The Human Phonograph’.’

    - Jonathan Tel
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Caribbean
    The King of Settlement 4
    Kevin Jared Hosein
    Trinidad and Tobago

    In Trinidad, two friends, Bug and Foster, decide to drop out of school to work for a gang leader calling himself the King. But when the King shows himself, their friendship quickly deteriorates.

    ‘The exuberant tone of ‘The King of Settlement 4′, from its alliterative and onomatopoeic delight in the language of the Islands rolled off the tongue, to the bodacious characters who appear to have walked off the street and into the story (or should that be the other way around?) makes it a winner.’
    Fred D’Aguiar, Judge

    Kevin Jared Hosein is a poet, writer and science teacher in Trinidad and Tobago and a graduate of the University of the West Indies. He illustrated and published a book for younger audiences, Littletown Secrets, in 2013. His short stories have been featured in Caribbean anthologies such as Pepperpot and Jewels of the Caribbean.

    ‘I just feel grateful to leave my footprint for Trinidad and Tobago on these sprawling literary stomping grounds. I’m also thankful for this remarkable, yet formidable, opportunity to present the characters (and monsters) I’ve envisioned to a wider audience.’

    - Kevin Jared Hosein
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Asia
    The Umbrella Man
    Siddhartha Gigoo
    India

    An inmate, living in an asylum, yearns for rain. All he possesses is an umbrella. His only friend is a puny fellow. Then one day the man is set free.

    ”The Umbrella Man’ presents a surreal meditation on mental health and the environment, through its ghostly voice, abstract and philosophical themes, and telescopic structure. We congratulate Siddhartha Gigoo for his sensitivity and perception, which made this story stand out from the rest.’
    Bina Shah, Judge

    Siddhartha Gigoo is the author of two books of fiction, The Garden of Solitude (2011) and A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories (2015). He has also written and directed two short films, The Last Day  and Goodbye, Mayfly. As a student, his two books of poems, Fall and Other Poems and Reflections were published by Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata, India.

    ‘I’m delighted that ‘The Umbrella Man’ has been selected as the regional winner for Asia. I’m sure the Umbrella Man, wherever he is, would be happy too. Most of my stories are about Kashmir, where I was born and spent my wonder years. The place now is just a faded image. Yet there are moments when it sparkles and comes alive. And thus, stories are born.’

    - Siddhartha Gigoo
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • The Shortlist

    • Cindy’s Class
      Alecia McKenzie
      Jamaica

      Cindy’s Class explores themes of trauma, healing, and self-discovery. It follows the protagonist’s journey to find relief from her nightmares by seeking help from a mysterious figure known as ‘Doctor Mann.’

      ‘We didn’t hide our curiosity about her when we started this class, but all we learned initially was that she’d become some kind of celebrity in America. And now, here she was on the island, on a mission. In my mind, I see her as the captain of a ship, her long shiny black hair blowing in the wind, her bony body bent over the wheel, sailing with purpose and taking her crew along, willingly or not. But I know that’s not the story. You have to be running away from something yourself to be with cases like us, on an island that can barely stay above water.’

      Alecia McKenzie is a Jamaican writer, artist and journalist. Her books include the short story collections Satellite City and Stories from Yard, and the novel Sweetheart. Alecia has participated in art exhibitions in New York, London and other cities, and, as a journalist, has reported on human rights, gender, development, culture and the environment. She is the founder and editor of Southern World Arts News (SWAN), an online site that provides information about the arts.

    • Corrango
      Jennifer Mills
      Australia

      ‘The door croaked.

      “Hello?” I called out.

      “It’s only the wind,” he said, looking into his screen. But it wasn’t the wind. There were two faces at the door, two round faces blocking the light. Both were framed by dark, unruly curls.

      “Hi,” I said. The younger sister put her fist in her mouth so fast it could have broken a tooth. The older squinted at me.

      “You’re not allowed in here,” she said, stepping one foot inside.

      “Oh, we’re all right,” I replied, amused by how menacing this kid was. Despite myself, I was intimidated. The little one looked from me to her sibling, uncertain.

      “Hello,” said Gage, and grinned at them. His voice was as sweetened as the orange juice. They both backed up a step, examined him with matching frowns.’

      Jennifer Mills is the author of the novels Gone and The Diamond Anchor and the short story collection The Rest is Weight, which was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and longlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In 2012 Jennifer was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist and in 2014 she received the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship from the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. She is the fiction editor at Overland literary journal, and is currently working on a novel, Dyschronia, about climate change and the perception of time. Jennifer lives in Beijing.

    • Famished Eels
      Mary Rokonadravu
      Fiji

      She is off the coast of Lifou in New Caledonia counting sea urchins when her father suffers a stroke. He is the keeper and teller of stories, now he calls on her to finish his task.

      ‘After one hundred years, all I have is one daguerreotype photograph of her in bridal finery. A few stories told and retold in plantations, kitchens, hospitals, airport lounges. Scattered recollections argued over expensive telephone conversations across centuries and continents by half-asleep men and women in pyjamas. Arguments over mango pickle recipes on emails and private messages on Facebook. A copper cooking pot at the Fiji Museum. Immigration passes at the Fiji National Archives. It is 2011…’

      Mary Rokonadravu is Communications Manager at WWF-Pacific based in Suva, Fiji. She finds inspiration in the lives of ordinary people and communities, particularly untold stories of people in the frontlines of climate change and environmental degradation in the Pacific islands region. She believes in the power of culture and the arts, particularly storytelling, to inspire transformation in society. She loves cats.

    • How to Pronounce Knife
      Souvankham Thammavongsa
      Canada

      In How to Pronounce Knife, a young child struggles with the complexities of language and identity.

      ‘At home, I open the book I was given. I am supposed to practice my reading. Soon it will be my turn to read in front of the whole class.

      I turn the pages. They are shiny and smell like paint thinner. Like my father. I look at the drawings and try each word by itself slowly.

      There’s that word.

      I have trouble with it. I make the sound each letter is supposed to make on its own.

      It doesn’t sound like anything real.’

      Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand in 1978. She was raised and educated in Toronto. She is the author of three books of poetry, Light (2013), Found (2007), and Small Arguments (2003), all published by Pedlar Press in Canada. Of her most recent collection, the Trillium Book Award jury, awarding her the prize for poetry, called the collection ‘a landmark in contemporary poetry’.

    • Left
      Jayne Bauling
      South Africa

      The story explores themes of grief, isolation, and the healing power of human connection. It highlights the profound impact that tragedy can have on an individual’s life and the unexpected bonds that can form in times of shared sorrow.

      ‘His accent is strange and rich to her ears. She must strain to understand what he is saying and even then the sense of it sometimes slips past her. His name, she knows from the board at the entrance downstairs, is Szymanski. She has never attempted it, nervous of mispronunciation, although her own name is nearly unrecognisable on his tongue.

      She thinks of inviting him to call her by her first name, but suspects he would find it improper. He might even be alarmed, thinking her about to impose, to burden him.

      She had never anticipated that loss would make her timid, fearful of oppressing others with her grief.’

      Jayne Bauling lives in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Her novels for young adults have won the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa, the Maskew Miller Longman Literature Award and the Sanlam Gold Prize for Youth Literature. The most recent, Dreaming of Light, was chosen for the 2014 IBBY Honour List. Her short stories for adults and youth have been published in various anthologies. Her story Flight was shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

    • Legs of Thunder
      Fred Khumalo
      South Africa

      ‘Look, she would say, you can clean tripe for hygienic purposes; you can package it glamorously; you can market it whichever way you want to upmarket consumers; you can call it exotic names – mala mogodu, itwani, upense, or whatever tickles your fancy. But for crying in a bucket don’t pulverize the darn thing by soaking it in bleach. When you do that, it turns completely white and textureless. With the colour gone, the funk is gone; the grit is gone; the grease is gone. And with the funk and the grit and the grease gone, the flavour is gone! So, what’s the point? Might as well eat bleached dishwashing rags and bleached veggies! Nomcebo was so determined to prepare a dish of proper tripe for dinner she did not mind driving up the busy Louis Botha Avenue, all the way to Hillbrow. Tripe and dumplings, ahhhhh…’

      Fred Khumalo is the award-winning author of the novels Bitches Brew and Seven Steps To Heaven – which are being taught at various universities in South Africa. A veteran journalist who has worked for numerous newspapers in South Africa and abroad, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2012. His non-fiction books include Touch My Blood, his autobiography, which was shortlisted for the Alan Paton Prize for Non-fiction in 2007.

    • Light
      Lesley Nneka Arimah
      Nigeria

      A mother’s absence grows the bond between a father and his daughter. But when the world weighs in, the ties that bind them together begin to fray.

      ‘When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not yet know what the world did to daughters. He did not know how quickly it would wick the dew off her, how she would be returned to him hollowed out, relieved of her better parts. Now, in the before of it, they are living in Port Harcourt in a bungalow in the old Ogbonda Layout…’

      Lesley Nneka Arimah grew up in Nigeria and the UK. She currently resides in the US in the state of Minnesota where she spends the winters in hiding, working on a novel and a collection of short stories.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • Madness
      Toodesh Ramesar
      Trinidad and Tobago

      ‘It is midnight, weekend, and the house, the rum-shop flat, is empty, save for him and me.

      He goes past the door where I lie in the narrow bed facing the musty store room with about a hundred empty rum bottles, refilled with milk sometimes in the week and, on Saturday evenings especially, with the six bottle puncheon glass gallon with a neck handle poured and mixed in an enamel pot that makes seven. I use a dhal-spoon and a little yellow or red or orange plastic funnel to refill seven bottles, all equal at the neck, crown tight and silver-shiny, the dog-eared copy-book from Saturday evening that I carried to the hammock back in the drawer in the counter.
      Saturday evening is pay-day, the dozen workmen men coming and going one at a time from the bench under the upstairs house, where Baap will later sit and talk with my father, he in English, grandfather in Hindi about truck and cane and logs and cows and land and money.’

      Toodesh Ramesar is a writer and literature teacher from Trinidad and Tobago. He has won several prizes including the 2005 Derek Walcott and University of West Indies Prize for Poetry. His work has been featured in the collection Six Trinidadian Poets and the literary journal The Caribbean Writer.

    • Novostroïka
      Maria Reva
      Canada

      ‘Walking home from work, careful to avoid the ice patches on the sidewalk, Daniil wondered when he had let the numbers slip. Last month the number of people living in his suite was twelve, including himself. He counted on his fingers, stiff from the cold. In the bedroom, first corner, Baba Olga slept on the fold-out armchair; second corner, on the fold-out cot were Aunt Lena and Uncle Ivan and their three children; third corner, Daniil’s niece and her friend (but they hardly counted, they ate little and spent most of their time at the institute); fourth corner, who was in the fourth corner, wait, that was himself, Daniil Blinov, bunking under Uncle Timko; in the hallway, someone’s mother-in-law or second cousin or who really knew, the connection was patchy; on the balcony camped Cousin Vovic and his fiancé and six hens, which were not included in the count but who could forget them, damn noisy birds. That made thirteen. He must have missed someone.’

      Maria Reva is a Ukrainian-Canadian writer whose work includes short fiction and libretti. She was a finalist for The Writers­­­’ Union of Canada 2013 Short Prose Competition, with publication forthcoming in The New Quarterly. Novostroïka is part of a story cycle set in a Soviet block building which, due to a bureaucratic glitch, does not officially exist. X: @mariareva_604

    • Old Honey
      Jessica White
      Australia

      Old Honey is a story exploring themes of connection, kindness, and resilience as it brings together people from different backgrounds through a shared love for bees and honey.

      ‘Iqbal came back to the clearing the next night, when his mother was with her choir. A few bees hung about and he moved carefully so as not to upset them. When he lifted the lid of one of the boxes, it released a smell like old urine. He realised what it was, and stepped back.

      In Sudan, his father had tended hives of cylinders made from curved bark and covered in hardened mud. He left them in the trees for months, then climbed up, white robes hitched above his knees, to pull them down.

      There was a clang and Iqbal glanced towards the house. A light came on, and the woman’s figure appeared at the window. After a few minutes, the light went off again.

      There came the familiar sound of crying. Quietly, Iqbal lowered the lid and turned back to the town.’

      Jessica was raised in the country in New South Wales and, at age 4, contracted meningitis and lost most of her hearing. Never one to be daunted, she made her way from a primary school of 100 pupils to publishing her first novel at age 29, before graduating with a PhD from the London Consortium, University of London. Her first novel, A Curious Intimacy, was published by Penguin in 2007. It won a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist award, was shortlisted for the Dobbie prize and the Western Australia Premier’s awards, and longlisted for the international IMPAC award. Her second novel, Entitlement, was also published by Penguin in 2012. Jessica’s short fiction, essays and poetry have also been published in Southerly, Island, The Review of Australia Fiction and Overland. Twitter: @ladyredjess

    • Pilgrimage
      Amina Farah
      Canada

      ‘Ayeyo Fanni is lost again. Lost in front of Cathy’s Kiwi Mart & Video Store. Her familiar green sweater and frail frame stand out against the seductive perfume advertised in the bus shelter behind her. Believe in your beauty, it tells us. Ayeyo Fanni sits patiently, looking down the street. One hand firmly grips a cane and the other shakes gently in her lap. When I first met her, a week ago, I worried she had been in the cold too long and was getting hypothermia. But when I got closer, I noticed only one hand trembled.’

      Amina Farah is a Somali writer who calls Toronto home and has roots in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work is inspired by the folklore and storytelling she heard as a child and her experiences with migration are central to the themes of identity, belonging, and displacement that are often explored in her stories.

    • Since We Never Met
      Steve Charters
      New Zealand

      ‘In cyberspace no-one can hear you scream, which is why you have to type it. Aarrgghh!

      And for repugnance: ewww; or sympathy: awww.

      Dixon rarely went in for that sort of thing; he was the strong, silent typist: LOL. Dixon was his real name – he said – and I was Kiwifruit. We met in ‘The Men’s Room’ on a Saturday in January, Dixon wearing sweats and a beanie and breakfasting in bed in Amsterdam, coffee and cigarettes; me naked under my mosquito net with my laptop – it was horribly hot so I had the window open. Outside the jagged hillside was disappearing into night.’

      After relinquishing a moribund theatrical career in England, Steve Charters returned to New Zealand to develop an early interest in writing. While attending courses at Auckland University he won The Macmillan Brown Prize for Writers and was highly commended in the CBA short story competition. He is published in Readers Digest; the anthology Creative Juices, and in The Rangitawa Collection 2014. His ultra-short fiction appears on the website http://flash-frontier.com/.

    • Tattoo
      Susan Yardley
      Australia

      ‘Mr Beavis clears his throat. Rattles on for a while about my lack of concentration and my disruptive behaviour. While he talks he touches his tie. His hands are pale and soft and he fingers the tie carefully as if it’s a musical instrument like a recorder or a clarinet and he’s trying not to play a wrong note.

      I sneak a sideways glance at my father. He is flexing his bicep and the pirate ship rocks to and fro. There’s a storm coming.

      Mr Beavis looks at me. “Is there anything going on at home that the school should know about Jake?”

      I just shake my head and say nothing.

      Dad’s mouth seems too tight for words to come out but somehow they do. “No, nothing going on at home.” He looks at me. “Is there Jakey?”’

      Susan Yardley‘s stories have won many competitions including the University of Canberra Award in 2007, the Rolf Boldrewood prize (twice) and the City of Glen Eira Award (twice.) Her work has appeared in the 2013 Aesthetica Creative Annual and in the anthology The Great Unknown, published in 2013 by Spineless Wonders.

    • The Death of A Valley
      Meenakshi Gautam Chaturvedi
      India

      ‘The blanket curtain falls like a dead body shot in the heart and there is a gaping hole through which the water and moonlight is pouring in like fresh pumped blood. The blanket is lying like a dead sodden weight on the floor. Like the weight on my conscience when Baby was scolded for my wrong. Yes it was then I knew I had done something wrong just as I did when they rewarded me at the training camp for making the seniors ‘happy’. I wasn’t expecting Memsahib to reward me with a full Ten Rupee for telling her the truth. I knew I had done something right then and ate all the chocolates I could buy with that Ten Rupee. But who was to decide what was right and what was not?’

      Meenakshi Gautam Chaturvedi is a copywriter by profession, but a writer by passion. After pursuing research in Zoology for two years as a National Research Fellow, she started her copywriting career with Lintas, and went on to work with Tata Interactive Systems and Britt Worldwide. She writes across genres, and is the author of two children’s books Tales from Bushland and Tales of Phoolpur.

    • The Human Phonograph
      Jonathan Tel
      UK

      A woman is reunited with her geologist husband at a remote nuclear base in the remote North-West of China during the 1960s.

      ‘And as a figure in reflective helmet and articulated suit half-walks half-floats over the unreal surface she make-believes he is her husband, and the moon itself could perfectly well be Qinghai province for all anybody can tell, and one of the other translators, one who specializes in English, says Mr. Armstrong is saying, ‘A small step for man, a large step for man’ and she shades her eyes with her hands so nobody can see her cry…’

      Jonathan Tel is writing a fiction book set in contemporary China. It is composed of ten chapters, each of which may be read as an independent story, but which link together to form a novel. The winning story is extracted from this work. The opening chapter, ‘The Shoe King of Shanghai’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Award 2014. He is looking for a publisher for this book. He is also writing a book of poems about Berlin.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • The Itch
      Muthoni wa Gichuru
      Kenya

      ‘“This is the third pot you have broken. What is wrong with you?” Mbui’s uncle, Mbutu, asked her as he gathered up the pieces. The itching subsided and Mbui seemed to come back to herself. She looked at him the way someone looks at a person they have suddenly recognized.

      “Are you going out your mind?” Uncle Mbutu asked her. Mbui walked away from him without answering. She felt nauseated by the strong smell of the filter-less cigarettes Mbutu smoked. Was she going out of her mind? Would madness overcome her so that she would be walking around the village like Munga, the village madman, who had recently beaten his brother Chege with a cat? Munga had held Chege and swung the cat at his head and the cat had clawed Chege’s head pulling out chunks of hair. By the time people came to Chege’s rescue, his head had deep lacerations and he had to wear a turban for three months.’

      Muthoni wa Gichuru lives in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a bachelor’s degree in information science from Moi University. Her first published novel Breaking the Silence was the first runner up in the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation Literature Prize Youth Category in 2011. Her short story Boys and Girls will be published in Fresh Paint Volume 2, an anthology by AMKA Space for women writers.

    • The King of Settlement 4
      Kevin Jared Hosein
      Trinidad and Tobago

      In Trinidad, two friends, Bug and Foster, decide to drop out of school to work for a gang leader calling himself the King. But when the King shows himself, their friendship quickly deteriorates.

      ‘I’m gon start this one off by telling you that I was born and raise along a backroad that always seemed slightly more Trinidadian than the rest of the country. Settlement 4 is that old-timey, grassy, care-free type of Trinidad the illustrators adore. Open any Caribbean primary school readin book and you gon likely see it there…’

      Kevin Jared Hosein is a poet, writer and science teacher in Trinidad and Tobago and a graduate of the University of the West Indies. He illustrated and published a book for younger audiences, Littletown Secrets, in 2013. His short stories have been featured in Caribbean anthologies such as Pepperpot and Jewels of the Caribbean.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • The Umbrella Man
      Siddhartha Gigoo
      India

      An inmate, living in an asylum, yearns for rain. All he possesses is an umbrella. His only friend is a puny fellow. Then one day the man is set free.

      ‘He unfurled the umbrella, held it aloft over his head and stepped out of his ward again that evening, thinking that it would rain. Rain had evaded the place for several months. Only in the evenings were the inmates allowed to go out of their wards and stroll in the compound of the asylum…’

      Siddhartha Gigoo is the author of two books of fiction, The Garden of Solitude (2011) and A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories (2015). He has also written and directed two short films, The Last Day  and Goodbye, Mayfly. As a student, his two books of poems, Fall and Other Poems and Reflections were published by Writer’s Workshop, Kolkata, India.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • This is How the Ecosystem Works
      Shahnaz Habib
      India

      In This is How the Ecosystem Works, a girl triumphs in a writing contest and embarks on a journey to understand the diverse reactions of people towards her. Throughout her experience, she discovers the solitude that accompanies the craft of writing and gains insights into the intricacies of sharing one’s stories with the world.

      ‘“Keep writing,” Mahesh Namboothiri smiled his sad smile. Then he looked away and cleared his throat and said, “And once in a while, try to write a story in Malayalam too. Don’t forget your mother tongue.”

      Forget. Mother tongue. Don’t. The words sank in slowly, and each word sent Mini spiraling into shame. Instantly, she saw herself as Mahesh Namboothiri saw her, this English-speaking, English-writing, English-dreaming brat who had dismissed the language she was born with, its rude proverbs and rolling hills of poems. Why did she not write in Malayalam? Mini wondered. Her very first story was about five children who ate peaches from tins and said “I say!” a lot and played in a willow treehouse behind a manor. Her insides contracted with guilt when she thought of Helen Hills. That was the pen name she had come up with.’

      Shahnaz Habib’s fiction and essays are published or forthcoming in Brevity, Elsewhere, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Guardian, The Caravan, Afar, and other magazines. She writes book reviews for the Briefly Noted column of The New Yorker. Shahnaz is a 2015 New York Foundation of Arts Fellow and the founding editor of Laundry, a literary magazine about fashion. Shahnaz lives in New York, where she freelances for the United Nations and Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

    • Zoe
      Darren Doyle
      Trinidad and Tobago

      Zoe explores the brief encounter and bond between two strangers and the impact it has on their lives. It beautifully captures the fleeting nature of connections and the bittersweetness of saying goodbye.

      ‘“You livin’ aroun’ here?” And suddenly she was traversing the hills and valleys of the local accent. She had captured and re-created the rhythm and cadence, the lilting, sing-song. The quick-fire, splice-and-elision delivery to come. It was important to maintain the integrity of the accent. A misstep and you might be mocked, laughed at, looked at with gentle, turned down smiles; unconvinced, unimpressed. He watched the words out her mouth, they soared through the air like a dart… And landed. Bulls-eye. He imagined her flying between one country and the next, and half-way between the two switching accents, an easy thing like flicking a switch, no one the wiser where she came from. The strange duality of it, like babies born during international flights. What nationality did they gave them beyond the nationality of their parents?’

      Darren Doyle was born in Trinidad and Tobago. He has a Journalism BA from the University of Sheffield, and feels most at home writing, and maintaining the blog, Worksp_ce, at www.workspce.com. He is currently working on getting his first novel published.

    • Aadi v the World
      Rachel Stevenson
      United Kingdom

      ‘Hayam upstairs is well fit. She’s a Muslim and I’ve seen her going to mosque on a Friday in the veil thing that covers everything ‘cept her eyes, which are caramel-coloured, like gulab jamun, but most of the time she wears a shalwar, real pretty pink or purple ones, but then I saw her at the bus-stop with her mates in skinny jeans, looking fine. She’s a Muzzy, but she’s safe. Sometimes, when I’m gaming, I create a new character and make the avatar look like her, wearing jeans.’

      Rachel Stevenson grew up in Doncaster, South Yorkshire and now lives in London, UK. She has contributed to Smoke: A London Peculiar, Here Comes Everyone, Short Story Sunday, A Cuppa And An Armchair and The Guardian. Her work has been made into a short film for the Tate website, directed by Sam Blair. She recently completed an MA in Creative Writing.

    • April with Oyundi
      Alexander Ikawah
      Kenya

      April with Oyundi captures the essence of childhood, with its ups and downs, and how relationships evolve and mature over time.

      ‘But you could feel it in your stomach, those murmurations of doom butterflies that loosen your bowels as if you have typhoid. Mama passed me at the table with my ‘Better English’ and looked pleasantly puzzled and then Oyundi came trotting after her. One glance and the sweat beads appeared on my forehead. I looked at her face with forced bravado but women’s intuition is like witchcraft. She was already smiling. Outside, I heard the first sounds of trouble from Kivuva’s house as his mother started as usual with a good verbal blasting. And then I saw the shape of Mama Pipi approaching my mother at the hanging line and quietly swallowed the frog in my throat.’

      Alexander Ikawah is a freelance writer and filmmaker living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a founding member of the Pan-African writers’ collective Jalada Africa and was shortlisted for the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His work had been published in Jalada and Storymoja.

    This year’s judging panel

    • Romesh Gunesekera

      Chair

      Romesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Britain in the early 1970s. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is the author of eight books of fiction. His novel Reef was short-listed for the 1994 Booker Prize. His new collection of stories set in post-war Sri Lanka, Noontide Toll, was published by Granta in 2014 along with a 20th anniversary edition of his first novel Reef. Twitter: @RomeshG

    • Leila Aboulela

      Judge

      Leila Aboulela’s latest novel Lyrics Alley (2010) was the Fiction Winner of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards. It was long-listed for the Orange Prize and short-listed for the S. Asia and Europe Region in the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. Her previous novels The Translator (1999), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Minaret (2005) were longlisted for the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award. Leila was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing for ‘The Museum’ included in her story collection Coloured Lights (2001). Her work has been translated into 14 languages.

    • Fred DAguiar

      Judge

      Fred D’Aguiar was born in London of Guyanese parents and grew up in Guyana. His twelve books include novels, poems and plays. His latest novel, inspired by events at Jonestown, Guyana, is Children of Paradise (2014). Fred teaches at Virginia Tech in the United States. Twitter: @VTPOET

       

    • Witi Ihimaera

      Judge

      Witi Ihimaera is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer, film producer and teacher. In 1973 he became the first Maori novelist with Tangi, and won a Commonwealth regional prize for The Matriarch in 1987. His book The Whale Rider was made into a successful international film in 2002. His memoir Maori Boy, will be released in November 2014 in New Zealand.

    • Bina Shah

      Judge

      Bina Shah is a Karachi-based author of four novels,  including her most recent book A Season of Martyrsand two collections of short stories. A regular contributor to The International New York Times and a frequent guest on the BBC, she has contributed essays and op-eds to Al Jazeera, Granta, The Independent, and The Guardian, and writes a regular column for Dawn, the top English-language newspaper in Pakistan. Twitter: @BinaShah

    • Marina Endicott

      Judge

      Marina Endicott worked as an actor and director before turning to fiction. Marina’s novels and stories have been serialized on CBC Radio, and she’s had three plays produced. Her novel Good to a Fault was a finalist for the Canada’s Giller Prize and was a regional winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book. Her novel Close to Hugh is released in 2015. Twitter: @marinaendicott

    Frequently asked questions

    1. The prize is open to all Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and over –  please see the full list of Commonwealth countries here.

    2. The story must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.