Commonwealth Short Story Prize
2015The 2015 prize winner
‘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’.’
‘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.’
Regional winners
We are delighted to announce this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winners!
- Pacific 'Famished Eels' Mary Rokonadravu (Fiji)
- Africa 'Light' Lesley Nneka Arimah (Nigeria)
- Canada & Europe 'The Human Phonograph' Jonathan Tel (UK)
- Caribbean 'The King of Settlement 4' Kevin Jared Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
- Asia 'The Umbrella Man' Siddhartha Gigoo (India)
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:
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.
‘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
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.
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
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.
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 Shortlist
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'Cindy’s Class' , Alecia McKenzieJamaica
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'Corrango' , Jennifer MillsAustralia
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'Famished Eels' , Mary RokonadravuFiji
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'How to Pronounce Knife' , Souvankham ThammavongsaCanada
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'Left' , Jayne BaulingSouth Africa
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'Legs of Thunder ' , Fred KhumaloSouth Africa
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'Light' , Lesley Nneka ArimahNigeria
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'Madness' , Toodesh RamesarTrinidad and Tobago
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'Novostroïka' , Maria RevaCanada
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'Old Honey' , Jessica WhiteAustralia
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'Pilgrimage' , Amina FarahCanada
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'Since We Never Met' , Steve ChartersNew Zealand
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'Tattoo' , Susan YardleyAustralia
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'The Death of A Valley' , Meenakshi Gautam ChaturvediIndia
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'The Human Phonograph' , Jonathan TelUK
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'The Itch' , Muthoni wa GichuruKenya
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'The King of Settlement 4' , Kevin Jared HoseinTrinidad and Tobago
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'The Umbrella Man' , Siddhartha GigooIndia
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'This is How the Ecosystem Works' , Shahnaz HabibIndia
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'Zoe' , Darren DoyleTrinidad and Tobago
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'Aadi v the World ' , Rachel StevensonUnited Kingdom
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'April with Oyundi' , Alexander IkawahKenya
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Cindy’s ClassAlecia McKenzieJamaica
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.’
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CorrangoJennifer MillsAustralia
‘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.’
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Famished EelsMary RokonadravuFiji
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…’
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How to Pronounce KnifeSouvankham ThammavongsaCanada
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.’
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LeftJayne BaulingSouth 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.’
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Legs of ThunderFred KhumaloSouth 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…’
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LightLesley Nneka ArimahNigeria
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…’
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MadnessToodesh RamesarTrinidad 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.’ -
NovostroïkaMaria RevaCanada
‘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.’
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Old HoneyJessica WhiteAustralia
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.’
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PilgrimageAmina FarahCanada
‘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.’
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Since We Never MetSteve ChartersNew 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.’
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TattooSusan YardleyAustralia
‘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?”’
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The Death of A ValleyMeenakshi Gautam ChaturvediIndia
‘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?’
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The Human PhonographJonathan TelUK
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…’
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The ItchMuthoni wa GichuruKenya
‘“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.’
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The King of Settlement 4Kevin Jared HoseinTrinidad 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…’
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The Umbrella ManSiddhartha GigooIndia
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…’
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This is How the Ecosystem WorksShahnaz HabibIndia
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.’
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ZoeDarren DoyleTrinidad 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?’
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Aadi v the WorldRachel StevensonUnited 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.’
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April with OyundiAlexander IkawahKenya
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.’
This year’s judging panel
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Romesh Gunesekera
ChairRomesh 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
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Leila Aboulela
JudgeLeila 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.
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Fred DAguiar
JudgeFred 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
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Witi Ihimaera
JudgeWiti 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.
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Bina Shah
JudgeBina Shah is a Karachi-based author of four novels, including her most recent book A Season of Martyrs, and 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
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Marina Endicott
JudgeMarina 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
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The prize is open to all Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and over – please see the full list of Commonwealth countries here.
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The story must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.
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