Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Shortlist

• 'Price Tags' , Buke Abduba
  Kenya
• 'Arboretum' , H. B. Asari
  Nigeria
• 'The Undertaker's Apprentice' , Hana Gammon
  South Africa
• 'Oceans Away From My Homeland' , Agnes Chew
  Singapore
• 'Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things' , Rue Baldry
  United Kingdom
• 'Ocoee' , Kwame McPherson
  Jamaica
• 'Kilinochchi' , Himali McInnes
  New Zealand
• 'Mama Blue' , Michael Boyd
  South Africa
• 'Deficiency Notice ' , Arman Chowdhury
  Bangladesh
• 'Lost Boys' , Trevor Corkum
  Canada
• 'Crossing Lake Abaya' , Gail Davey
  United Kingdom
• 'Sauce' , Jean Flynn
  Australia
• 'So Long, Gregor' , Mehdi M. Kashani
  Canada
• 'When this island disappears' , Dennis Kikira
  Papua New Guinea
• 'Η Ψαρού (The Fisherwoman)' , Eva Koursoumba
  Cyprus
• 'Relative Distance' , Shih-Li Kow
  Malaysia
• 'Khicheenk!' , Usama Lali
  Pakistan
• 'Where the Winds Blow' , Cosmata A. Lindie
  Guyana
• 'Road Trip and Fall' , Demoy Lindo
  Jamaica
• 'Teef From Teef' , Deborah Matthews
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'Punching Lines ' , Josiah Mbote
  Kenya
• 'Because You Drowned' , Jay McKenzie
  United Kingdom
• 'Falling from a knife tree' , Matshediso Radebe
  South Africa
• 'Catching Up' , Janeen Samuel
  Australia
• 'Sugartown' , Emma Sloley
  Australia
• 'The Ovelias at Benzie Hill Dump' , Alexia Tolas
  Bahamas
• 'A Groom Like Shahrukh' , Vidhan Verma
  India
• 'Principles of Accounting' , Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne
  Sri Lanka

• Price Tags

  Buke Abduba

  Kenya

  ‘Price Tags’ is about a young girl who leaves home to buy a good life, unaware of just how much it would cost her. 

  ‘He wears the same old dirt colored t-shirt, and a kikoi – this one new, that hangs so callously off his waist I fear it will fall. I study him a little too long and when the silence grows too loud for our comfort, he clears his throat and I blurt out that I’ve missed him before I can stop myself.’

  Buke Abduba was born in 1998 in Sololo and raised in Moyale, Kenya. An unpublished writer, Buke began writing in 2015, shortly after losing her father to cancer.

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• Arboretum

  H. B. Asari

  Nigeria

  ‘Arboretum’ is a short story that interrogates grief both collective and personal, and asks, ‘How do we pick ourselves up and keep going in the face of overwhelming tragedy.’ 

  ‘No one knows why people started to turn into trees, but everyone knows the first. It was a baby in Japan, a girl, and no one knows if she turned in her mother’s womb or a moment after her introduction to this harsh world. Her name was meant to be Yumi Murakami and she was born a sakura seedling.’

  H. B. Asari is a student at the University of Lagos. Her short fiction has been published in The Voyage Journal. 

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• The Undertaker's Apprentice

  Hana Gammon

  South Africa

  ‘The Undertaker’s Apprentice’ follows the story of a group of children and their interactions with their small town’s sombre but kind mortician. As they grow up, they are forced to question issues of growth, decay, and exchange between different states of being.

  ‘I suppose that, when one’s living is made up of dressing up the dead and putting them into the ground, one must be prepared to answer a great many morbid questions, especially from children. Who decides which clothes a corpse should wear when it is buried? How are the mouth and eyes held shut?’

  Hana Gammon was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2002, and has had a love for writing ever since she could first pick up a pen. She is currently studying for a BA in Language and Culture at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

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• Oceans Away From My Homeland

  Agnes Chew

  Singapore

  ‘Oceans Away from My Homeland’ is about a woman’s struggle to confront the perceived changes in her life—both of and beyond her own making.

  ‘My husband guides my finger over the curve of my breast. My heartbeat quickens. Then I feel what he’s felt. Desire drains from my body. What was once familiar becomes foreign. I look down at my bare chest, unable to see the orb nestled in soft tissue that shifts beneath my fingertips.’

  Agnes Chew is the author of ‘Eternal Summer of My Homeland’ (forthcoming from Epigram Books) and ‘The Desire for Elsewhere’ (Math Paper Press, 2016). Her work has appeared in Necessary Fiction, Wildness Journal, and NonBinary Review, among others. She holds a Master’s degree in international development from the London School of Economics. Born and raised in Singapore, she is currently based in Germany.

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• Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things

  Rue Baldry

  United Kingdom

  A young, Black plasterer, drawn to committing petty acts of revenge against his employer’s neglected possessions, risks becoming more diminished than those status symbols.

  ‘That night, Lisa wants to go to a bar, but neither of us have been paid yet, so instead, we sit on my bed, eating pasta out of the saucepan and watching Pottery Throwdown until I distract her by stroking her tights. She smells of Surf fabric softener and the Colonel’s secret recipe.’

  Rue Baldry is a British author represented by Blake Friedmann. She lives in York, has a Creative Writing MA from Leeds University, was a Bridge Awards Emerging Writer, Jerwood/Arvon mentee and Women’s Prize Discoveries longlistee. Her twenty-four story publications include stories in Ambit, Mslexia, Fairlight Shorts, Litro, Honest Ulsterman, MIR, and The First Line. Her work has placed in several competitions, including coming second in the Yeovil Prize. Her debut novel, Dwell, is currently on submission.

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• Ocoee

  Kwame McPherson

  Jamaica

  The story is an interweaving of African American reality and history, and Caribbean folklore since there are many stories in the African Diaspora experience to share.

  ‘Suddenly, a ping. I glanced at the notification; a blob immediately appeared on my GPS that was not there before. Its name came up as Ocoee. I squinted, there was a town up ahead; I could see its lights on the horizon and building outlines. Its name made no impression on me and it sounded like one those haunted places always found in the back of some beyond.’

  A past student of London Metropolitan University and the University of Westminster, Kwame McPherson is a 2007 Poetic Soul winner and was the first Jamaican Flash Fiction Bursary Awardee for The Bridport Prize: International Creative Writing Competition in 2020. A prolific writer, Kwame is a recent and successful contributor to Flame Tree Publishing’s (UK) diverse-writing anthologies and a contributor to The Heart of a Black Man anthology to be published in Los Angeles, which tells personal inspiring, uplifting and empowering stories from influential and powerful Black men.

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• Kilinochchi

  Himali McInnes

  New Zealand

  Set during a particularly bloody time in Sri Lanka’s civil war, the protagonist, an up-country Tamil tea-picker, comes from a long line of indentured labourers.

  ‘When Nisha performs the burial ceremony for her 26-year-old son, she has to imagine his body lowering into the earth. Cremation is impossible with an imaginary body, even though it’s the best way to release a soul. This ceremony, instead, is a commingling of Christian traditions practised by her husband Sam, and the ancient Hindu rites of Nisha’s ancestors.’

  Himali McInnes works as a family doctor in a busy Auckland practice and in the prison system. She is a constant gardener, a chicken farmer, and a beekeeper. Himali writes short stories, essays, flash fiction and poetry, and has been published in various journals and anthologies. Her non-fiction book The Unexpected Patient was published in 2021.

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• Mama Blue

  Michael Boyd

  South Africa

  The story of a man remembering his life through the memories of his neighbour, Mama Blue. With touches of the magical, ‘Mama Blue’ is about hope in our ever-changing world, and how we can use the past to look forward. 

  ‘She opened her hand delicately, like a flower. There was nothing inside.

  ‘Do you know how to hide an idea?’ she asked.

  I looked into the empty hand.

  She didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘By making it so small that no-one notices it.’’

  Michael Boyd grew up in Southern Africa before attending the University of Kent in the UK. After working at a number of film festivals, he decided on a career in teaching, and return to Africa. He now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing, during which he wrote his first novel. 

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• Deficiency Notice

  Arman Chowdhury

  Bangladesh

  ‘Deficiency Notice’ tracks the daily life of a speech-impaired, eleven-year-old boy from a lower-middle class Christian family, living in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

  ‘When evening approaches, the mosque blares the call to prayer. Michael finishes his homework. His parents finish their naps. They are in a bad mood because the sunset awakes strangeness in people. Or perhaps there is something inherently strange about his parents.’

  Arman Chowdhury is a writer from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame. His work has been supported by the Loft Literary Center based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tin House Summer Workshop based in Portland, Oregon. 

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• Lost Boys

  Trevor Corkum

  Canada

  ‘Lost Boys’ tells the story of Gideon, a 17-year old boy sent to a re-education camp for gay teenagers by his religious parents. 

  ‘Like her own pious mother in a world long ago, Mama is a God-fearing woman. If I were a more compassionate son, more steady in care and devotion, I would venture that what she longed for, in her deepest heart of hearts, was for my pure and eternal salvation.’

  Trevor Corkum lives on Prince Edward Island, along Canada’s East Coast. His fiction, non-fiction, and journalism have appeared widely in Canada’s leading periodicals, including Walrus, Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail. In Canada, his work has been previously recognized with nominations for the CBC Short Story Prize, the CBC Nonfiction Prize, the Journey Prize, and the National Magazine Award for Fiction. Trevor’s debut novel The World After Us will be published by Doubleday Canada in 2024. 

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• Crossing Lake Abaya

  Gail Davey

  United Kingdom

  ‘Crossing Lake Abaya’ is based on twenty years’ experience of working with people affected by a debilitating leg swelling condition called podoconiosis. Much still remains to be done to raise awareness in affected populations that the condition is preventable and treatable. 

  ‘I can tell that father is irritated that mother has not come for us, and probably also concerned that lunch may not be ready. He strides impatiently, pushing me forward, the blade hanging down behind him to just above his calves. We cross our neighbours’ fields and carry the ploughshare through the aloe bushes that form our fence.’

  Gail Davey is a medical epidemiologist who spent ten years living and working in Ethiopia. She is now UK-based, but continues to do research in East Africa. She has had one short story included in a competition anthology published by The Lancet, and another accepted by the Commonwealth Foundation’s online literary magazine adda. 

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• Sauce

  Jean Flynn

  Australia

  A story about a woman who makes a series of mistakes – some small, some not so small. 

  ‘I sent a text to my brother-in-law.

  It wasn’t meant for him. There were no words – just a picture. A photo. Clear as anything. I’d just got a new phone and the camera was deadset incredible. Somehow the lighting was amazing, too – that was just a fluke.’

  Jean Flynn lives in Australia. Jean spent most of her childhood sitting inside, writing. Her debut novel, Lovesick, won the inaugural XO Romance Prize in 2016. She has had short stories published in various anthologies.  

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• So Long, Gregor

  Mehdi M. Kashani

  Canada

  A divorced father seizes every opportunity to bond with his young son, even if it involves trapping a cockroach and calling it Gregor Samsa, but this Kafkaesque amusement doesn’t appeal to everyone. 

  ‘Kids ask all sorts of questions, and Ryan is no exception. I don’t have the answer to every one of his inquiries, but when I do, it fills me with dignity and self-assurance, especially in light of the recent developments during which I’ve been proven inadequate in several areas.’

  Mehdi M. Kashani lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. His fiction has appeared in many Canadian and American literary journals, notably Epiphany, Southern Humanities Review, EVENT, and Bellevue Literary Review. Two years ago, one of his stories was a finalist for Canada’s National Magazine Awards. He’s currently revising his debut novel, tentatively titled If You’re Reading This, I’m Dead. 

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• When this island disappears

  Dennis Kikira

  Papua New Guinea

  ‘When this island disappears’ is about a simple island fisherman who is sent on an unknown journey by his authoritarian chief to bring hope to save the islanders from the brutal impacts of global warming and sea level rise.

  ‘Waves – the anguish of the sea gods in pitch black darkness and midnight – squirt squalls of salt spray, its bitterness biting on the eyes, lips and breathing. Who can see through the night as the sea unleashes its anger in deep swells? The only sound, thunderous ripples conforming to the direction of wind.’

  Dennis Kikira is from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. An Environmentalist and Development Practitioner by profession, he studied environmental science and geography at the University of Papua New Guinea, and did a postgraduate degree in environmental management from the University of Queensland in Australia. An unpublished writer, Dennis has always written widely as a hobby. 

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• Η Ψαρού (The Fisherwoman)

  Eva Koursoumba

  Cyprus

  A story of a woman who lived her entire life as a misfit in a small town on a Greek island. She had a baby out of wedlock and faced shame, ridicule and pain. She turned to fishing to earn a living but stood out again as the only fisherwoman at the pier, despised by almost everyone in her community. She was only saved by the kindness of strangers.  

  It was late afternoon, and from the balcony of the flat she saw down at the waterfront three men, standing in a row, fishing with their rods. But her attention was turned to the only woman there, fishing a little further away, close to an opening formed by the rocks.

  Eva Koursoumba was born in Cyprus, and went to the University of Westminster in London, (B.A. Hons in Media Studies) and to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, (Diploma in TV and Cinema Studies). After working in Cyprus TV and at advertising agency as Creative Director, she is now in Communications. Eva has written short stories, scripts, translated stage and radio plays, has published the novella Ποτέ ξανά τυρόπιτα, μ’ ακούς; (Never a cheese pie again, you hear?), the stage play Actus Reus, and the novel Πεταλούδες στο Μπάνιο (Butterflies in the bathroom), in Cyprus and in Greece. 

  ‘Η Ψαρού’ is translated from Greek into English by Lina Protopapa, a translator based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Her translation of Constantia Soteriou’s ‘Death Customs’ from Greek received the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and her translation of Nikolas Kyriacou’s ‘The Debt’ was shortlisted in 2020.

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• Relative Distance

  Shih-Li Kow

  Malaysia

  A man visits his ageing uncle and pretends he has returned from abroad. In the few days that they spend together, he navigates their shared history and old conflicts. 

  ‘I had forgotten how steep the staircases were in these pre-war buildings. The Airbnb I had rented for our holiday in Bentong was on the upper floor of a converted shophouse and Uncle climbed unsteadily ahead of me. His feet looked old and clumsy in his buckled slippers, and I braced to catch him in case he tripped.’

  Shih-Li Kow is a former chemical engineer and mall manager. Her novel The Sum of Our Follies was published in 2014 and the French edition (translated by Frederic Grellier) won the 2018 Prix du Premier Roman Etranger. Her collection Ripples and Other Stories was shortlisted for the 2009 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her short fiction has also been published in various journals and anthologies. 

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• Khicheenk!

  Usama Lali

  Pakistan

  In ‘Khicheenk!’ a son recounts the unusual, unfortunate and tragic circumstances that first brought his parents together, and how generational trauma has continued to shape and haunt him and his Punjabi feudal family over the years growing up. 

  ‘My mother married my father because her husband died and my father married my mother because his wife passed away. Shortly after their spouses’ deaths the elders convened in a baradari somewhere in our Punjabi village and decided they’d both be less sad together.’

  Usama Lali is a Pakistani writer born and raised in Punjab. He is currently finishing his MFA degree in fiction from the University of Washington, Seattle, where he also teaches undergraduate courses in English academic writing and composition as well as creative writing. 

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• Where the Winds Blow

  Cosmata A. Lindie

  Guyana

  A coming-of-age story about Iscar, firstborn son of the royal house of fearsome Caribbean hurricanes, learning to navigate the storms of life as a gentle breeze. 

  ‘But they had nothing to worry about; the Hurricane King was simply awaiting the birth of his first child. If all went as he anticipated, this new hurricane would grow in strength and fury to wreak havoc in the years to come, cementing his or her place as next in line to rule the powerful winds.’

  Cosmata A. Lindie is an Indigenous Guyanese artist and writer. In 2022 she was one of three Guyanese writers long-listed for the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s Elizabeth Nunez Award for short fiction. As an artist she began participating in exhibitions on a national level after joining the Guyana Women Artists’ Association (GWAA). She currently resides in the town of New Amsterdam in Guyana.  

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• Road Trip and Fall

  Demoy Lindo

  Jamaica

  Zoology major Jermaine seeks to seize the opportunity created by a ‘friendly’ college road trip to recapture the heart of his beloved; to make her fall in love with him again.

  ‘‘Hey Jermaine, we did plan a road trip for this Saturday.  Let me know if you want to come’ I stare at the text message for a while.

  I don’t see why Charlie had to send me that text directly when we have big friend’s group on WhatsApp and I never see a single message ‘bout any trip, drop nor fell.’

  Demoy Lindo, born in Portland Cottage, is a 21 year old Jamaican poet, writer and Victician.  Currently a student at the University of the West Indies, he first stepped into the scene of literature when he was awarded the Jamaica Young Poet Laureate Prize in 2020.  Demoy has since been published in a few journals, including PREE literature and New Voices. 

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• Teef From Teef

  Deborah Matthews

  Trinidad and Tobago

  A quintessentially Caribbean story about an impromptu mango-seeking adventure that takes place on a hot August day, which leads us on a young boy’s journey to understanding his own resilience. 

  ‘I couldn’t quarrel with she as she big and I small, so I put on my school sneakers which was the only pair of shoes that I did go there with, and walk outside in the yard into a wall of heat. The sun was hot, and breeze wasn’t blowing. Typical of August morning in Trinidad that does burn away all the fine hairs in your face.’

  Deborah Lee Matthews has been a cultural worker in the field of theatre for almost twenty years. A current postgraduate student in Cultural Studies at the UWI St. Augustine in Trinidad & Tobago, she uses creative expression as a tool to cultivate conversations about lived experiences, community building, active resistance and kinaesthetic memory. 

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• Punching Lines

  Josiah Mbote

  Kenya

  An introspective exploration of the narrator’s state as a failed stand-up comedian. He dares to touch on some perennial as well as contemporary themes such as failure, love, depression, and the philosophy of life through a delicate interplay of comical and tragic lens. 

  ‘I don’t smoke cigars. Everyone thinks I do but I don’t. I just let them dangle between my lips and fancy the thought of lighting them up. I prefer using a lighter, not a matchstick. A lighter is more fanciful. In my imagination, that is. My imagination doesn’t stop there.’

  Josiah Mbote is a Kenyan Writer studying Pharmacy at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. His central drive for writing has been to express himself, although he is currently compiling his debut collection of short stories.

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• Because You Drowned

  Jay McKenzie

  United Kingdom

  On the idyllic paradise island of Nusa Penida, taxi driver Gede struggles to come to terms with the death of a tourist. 

  ‘Your rag doll remains flop as they spare all ceremony to get your body off the ledge with its puncturing teeth that hold you just above the now flat water. Your head hangs limply from your neck, bouncing with every jolt, every heave, every yank over the unforgiving cliff face.’

  Based on Australia’s Gold Coast, Jay McKenzie is a British writer and performing arts teacher, who has lived in the UK, Greece, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia. Her short stories, flash and micro fiction focus on small, intimate details of ordinary lives. She has twice won the Australian Writers Centre’s Furious Fiction flash contest, won the 2022 Exeter Story Prize and she recently placed first in the 5th Writer’s Playground Challenge. 

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• Falling from a knife tree

  Matshediso Radebe

  South Africa

  ‘Falling From A Knife Tree’ is essentially scattered vignettes of the coming-of-age story of a piqued girl with divorced parents. 

  ‘He had his first knife fight at fifteen, came out of it unscathed and spent thirteen months in Drakenstein Correctional Centre. On his twenty-first, he got into a bar brawl and consequently served seven months for aggravated assault, which led him to drop out. Aunt says he never really cared about school.’

  Matshediso Radebe is a South African fiction writer. Born in 2000, Matshediso she enjoys writing character-based stories and troubled characters with interesting relationships and compelling dynamics drive her storytelling. Matshediso won the SA Writers College Short Story Competition in 2022. 

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• Catching Up

  Janeen Samuel

  Australia

  When a doctor acquires a new patient she is led to recall summer holidays of her childhood and a friendship which came to a sudden end. 

  ‘Genevieve. When did I last address someone by that name? Twenty-five years ago, surely. Those wide-apart blue eyes in the heart-shaped face; the wide mouth with its delicately curved upper lip; surely I recognise them. But a lot can change between twelve and thirty-seven, in a face and in a memory of a face.’

  Janeen Samuel was born in England but migrated to South Australia at the age of three.  She grew up in Adelaide, then moved to Queensland to study veterinary science.  An unpublished writer, she now lives in rural Victoria surrounded by slumbering volcanos, sheep, red-gum trees, and the occasional kangaroo.  

• Sugartown

  Emma Sloley

  Australia

  The story of Glory, a terminally ill young woman who takes a holiday with friends and ends up baking a cake for a stranger, an awkward act of kindness that anchors her back to the world. 

  ‘No one called it the last vacation because that would have been morbid, but that’s what it was. They all knew it: Glory, and her brother Ben, and Ben’s friends Suzie and Taylor, who had elected to spend ten days all together in this strange desert city, renting two adjoining condos in a 1970s building with a kidney-shaped pool and a hot tub.’

  Emma Sloley’s fiction and creative non-fiction has appeared in Catapult, Literary Hub, Joyland, The Common, CRAFT, and the Masters Review Anthology, among many others. She is a two-time MacDowell fellow and Bread Loaf scholar, and her debut novel, Disaster’s Children, was published by Little A books in 2019. Born and raised in Australia, Emma now divides her time between California and the city of Mérida, Mexico. 

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• The Ovelias at Benzie Hill Dump

  Alexia Tolas

  Bahamas

  A 15-year-old boy is desperate to earn his grandfather’s approval and his brother’s respect, but when he joins his family on a trip to the local dump and learns the true secret to their wealth, he realizes that sometimes love requires great sacrifice. 

  ‘Today the dump smells like burning flesh. As Babou turns the corner into the Benzie Hill peninsula, I can taste it on my tongue: a film of charred hair and fat and bone. Reminds me of the day Alex arrived in Long Island from Corfu and Papou roasted a whole lamb in the front yard. It didn’t smell like this yesterday.’

  Alexia Tolas is a Bahamian writer whose narratives explore small-island life, drawing from local folktales and mythology. Her writing has been featured in Granta, adda, The Caribbean Writer, and Mislexia. She won the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Regional Award for the Caribbean, was shortlisted for the 2020 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and in 2022, she received the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. 

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• A Groom Like Shahrukh

  Vidhan Verma

  India

  When it comes to their marriages, the two childhood friends secretly vie, and compete for a groom like Shahrukh Khan, the Bollywood heartthrob.  ‘A Groom like Shahrukh’ captures their journey, prayers and trepidations, as they go through arranged match-making.  

  ‘Paro and Manju, bosom friends, had a common love interest – Shahrukh Khan. The epiphany of their love happened as they watched Shahrukh’s Dilwale Dilhuniya Le Jayenge at Lakshmi Talkies in the district headquarter of Datia. It was mutually professed on the tractor-trolley ride back to their little township of Bhander.’

  Vidhan Verma grew up in a small town in India and graduated with a degree in business. An unpublished writer, he’s now based in Banglalore but longs to go gathering stories in small town India. 

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• Principles of Accounting

  Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne

  Sri Lanka

  The story of a young man, caught in a cycle of failure. He dreams of being ‘successful,’ and longs to find significance. But is he looking in the right places? 

  ‘Pulling out a banged up Nokia from his laptop bag, Mekala punches in the number he always wants to punch in at this time of the day. He treads the uneven pavement towards the bus stand, with the skill of a tired circus elephant.

  She picks up at last.’

  Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne writes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, musical parodies, and rhyming stories. She holds a Master of Laws from King’s College London (2009). Rukshani lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

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