Revisit the 2024 prize

Commonwealth Short Story Prize

2024

The 2024 prize winner

Sanjana Thakur
'Aishwarya Rai'

We are delighted to announce Sanjana Thakur as the overall winner of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The 26-year-old from Mumbai saw off 7,359 entrants worldwide to take the £5,000 prize. The news was announced at an online award ceremony, presented by New Zealand’s former Poet Laureate, Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh, in which Sanjana and the other four regional winners- Reena Usha Rungoo, Julie Bouchard, Portia Subran, Pip Robertson-spoke about the creative process behind their writing and read short extracts from their stories.

Sanjana’s story, ‘Aishwarya Rai’, takes its name from the famed Bollywood actress and reimagines the traditional adoption story: a young woman, Avni, chooses between possible mothers housed in a local shelter. The first mother is too clean; the second, who looks like the real-life Aishwarya Rai, is too pretty. In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches laundry turn round in her machine, dreams of stepping into white limousines, and tries out different mothers from the shelter. One of them must be just right…

The literary magazine Granta has published all the regional winning stories of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, including ‘Aishwarya Rai’.

The five stories are also available in a special print collection from Paper + Ink.

‘I’ve spent ten out of twenty-six years living in countries not my own. India, where I’m from, is simultaneously strange and familiar, accepting and rejecting. Writing stories is a way for me to accept that Mumbai is a city I will long for even when I am in it; it is a way to remake “place” in my mind. I am so thankful to the judges, my fellow shortlisted writers, and the other regional winners for writing beautiful stories. For my strange story—about mothers and daughters, about bodies, beauty standards, and Bombay street food—to find such a global audience is thrilling. I cannot express how wholly honoured I am to be the recipient of this incredible prize. I hope I continue writing stories that people want to read. Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

Sanjana Thakur

‘The short story form favours the brave and the bold writer. In “Aishwarya Rai”, Sanjana Thakur employs brutal irony, sarcasm, cynicism and wry humour packaged in tight prose and stanza-like paragraphs to confront us with the fracturing of family and the self as a result of modern urban existence. No matter which city you live in, you’ll recognise the stress-induced conditions like insomnia, restless leg, panic attacks and an obsession with a celebrity kind of beauty, in this this case, Bollywood. Thakur pushes this stinging absurdity as far as to suggest hiring mothers to replace inadequate ones. Rarely do we see satire pulled off so effortlessly.’ 

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chair, 2024 Judging Panel

The power of Sanjana Thakur’s story reminds us that the best of fiction peels back the hard skin of life and grants us the privilege of feeling every flutter and pulse of its raw, quivering heart.’ 

O Thiam Chin, Judge, Asia region

Watch the 2024 prize ceremony

Regional winners

We are delighted to announce the five regional winners of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize: Reena Usha Rungoo (Mauritius) for the Africa region, Sanjana Thakur (India) for the Asia region, Julie Bouchard (Canada) for the Canada and Europe region (translated from French into English by Arielle Aaronson), Portia Subran (Trinidad and Tobago) for the Caribbean region, and Pip Robertson (New Zealand) for the Pacific region.

This year’s prize attracted the highest-ever number of entrants, and the winners were all nominated for the first time. Congratulations to all five writers on this special achievement.

The winning stories carry readers from a small village in Trinidad to a lonely motel in New Zealand via northern Canada, Mumbai and Mauritius, with themes ranging from love and loss, troubled relationships with parents, and a woman’s love of tea. Two draw upon historical events, the 2023 wildfires in Canada, and the day electricity came to a remote village in Trinidad.

Chair of the Judges, Ugandan-British novelist and short story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi says: ‘The short story form has neither the luxury of time nor the comfort of space. It is an impatient form; it does not dance around. The punch of a good short story leaves you breathless. As the judging panel, we enjoyed, sorrowed, celebrated and eventually agreed that these stories came up on top of the different regions.’ 

The five regional winners will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 26 June 2024. Their stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta, and as an anthology published by Paper + Ink.

Read more about the winning writers below.

Press contact: Ruth Killick publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk

Commonwealth Foundation contact: creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com

  • Pacific
    'A River Then the Road'
    Pip Robertson
    New Zealand

    A 12-year-old girl and her brother visit their troubled father for the weekend. Mistrust of her own body and a sense of duty to protect her father from the consequences of his actions lead her into danger.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘This entry is an exceptional story of two young siblings navigating the consequences of their parent’s divorce. The pubescent daughter’s point of view—neither fully adult nor naive like her young brother—is brilliantly realised. Her heartbreaking attempts to contain her own fears while protecting her young sibling during parental abduction are among many strengths of ‘A River then the Road’. This story reminded me of so many young people I’ve known who are forced to grow up too fast because their parents haven’t. And it’s an oblique but biting commentary on capitalism, and the powerlessness of the unorganised working class to fight for a better life.’

    Melissa Lucashenko, Judge, Pacific Region

    Pip Robertson has had short stories published in journals and anthologies in print and online. She has a Master of Arts from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand, with her partner, daughter and dogs.

    ‘The starting point was always 12-year-old Alexis. Her age directly affects the decisions she makes and the direction of the story. She has a growing understanding of the world, but still areas of misunderstanding—including, crucially, about her own body.’

    ‘One of the challenges I love in writing short stories is conveying the complexity and contradictions of characters’ lives in just a few pages. In this story it was important to me that the increasing danger Alexis finds herself in doesn’t come from someone seeking to harm her, but from other characters doing what they think is right, however misguided.’

    - Pip Robertson
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Africa
    'Dite'
    Reena Usha Rungoo
    Mauritius

    Dite, which means ‘tea’ in Creole, is an exploration of a Mauritian woman’s love of tea and of her ties to the colonial history of tea. Each tea in her collection contains an olfactory memory in which her relationship with education, language, sex and other women is captured.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘From the first time I read it, Dite’ stayed with me. Its brilliance is distinguishable on first reading and even better when read once more. It is intentional and carefully layered. A masterful blend of memories alongside the protagonist’s love for tea. The story demonstrates skill, shifting between point of views and time, depicting generations of women and the strain left behind by colonialism. In the end, one is left in awe by the writer’s prowess.’

    Keletso Mopai, Judge, Africa Region

    Reena Usha Rungoo is a Mauritian writer, scholar, teacher, speaker, and mother. As an islander, an African and a diasporic South Asian, she uses the language of fiction (whether as a writer or a literary critic) to speak on how colonial violence infiltrates our beings, our languages and our desires, and on the creative ways in which we resist. She is an assistant professor of literature at Harvard University.

    Photo: Ashvin Ramdin

    ‘In Mauritius, we have such a love for tea. Especially vanilla tea. It’s baked into our morning and afternoon rituals. But there is also this violent colonial history tied to our enjoyment of tea and the sugar we put in it. Sugarcane and tea plantations are foundational to the slavery and indenture systems on which Mauritius was built.’

    ‘My story does not quite read like a short story. It defies the genre, and I was taking a risk by submitting it to a competition which is supposed to celebrate this genre. But coming out as a regional winner means my story was understood by an exceptional panel of judges. My voice was heard, without me having to explain myself as a writer. And that is wonderful.’

    - Reena Usha Rungoo
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Asia
    'Aishwarya Rai'
    Sanjana Thakur
    India

    The first mother is too clean; the second, too pretty. In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches laundry turn round in her machine, dreams of white limousines, and tries out different mothers from the shelter. One of them has to be just right.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘What a delight to savour this beauty of a story. At its beating heart lies a bracing portrait of the struggles of a young woman trying to find connection and intimacy. Sanjana Thakur has that rare, blistering talent for explicating the exquisite rhythms of thought and emotion as well as immersing the readers in the hilariously absurd and alluring dreamscape of a world she has skillfully conjured up, where wayward mothers are rescued and given a second chance at mothering, and daughters an opportunity to find a perfect mother.’

    O Thiam Chin, Judge, Asia Region

    Sanjana Thakur has a degree in English and Anthropology from Wellesley College, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction at UT Austin’s New Writers Project. Her short story Backstroke was published in The Southampton Review. She is from Mumbai, India.

    ‘I’ve spent ten out of twenty-six years living in countries not my own. India is simultaneously strange and familiar, accepting and rejecting. Writing stories is a way for me to accept that Mumbai is a city I will long for even when I am in it. I feel that the Commonwealth Short Story Prize offers that chance up to all of us: to be a writer who is from “somewhere”, to write from inside a legacy of colonialism and migration. I am so incredibly grateful to the prize for recognising that stories are not written in a vacuum.’

    ‘’Aishwarya Rai’ is a Mumbai story—a story about mothers and daughters, about bodies and sexuality and coming-of-age. It leans into strangeness and absurdity, and I am so grateful to the judging panel, not only for reading my work, but also for understanding and loving it.’

    - Sanjana Thakur
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Canada & Europe
    'What Burns'
    Julie Bouchard
    Canada

    ‘What Burns’ aims to be a narrative exploration—through flames, red bones and ashes—of the living forces that are consumed within and around us in this fiery 21st century.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘Julie Bouchard’s ‘What Burns’ is a profoundly intelligent, fiercely original piece that takes three disparate incidents—wildfire, arson, cremation—and connects them through the central image of burning. The narrative twists and widens to evoke a world on fire. From the beginning, this story stood out for its momentum, confidence, intricate structure, and agile prose. It’s a story that trusts its reader and invites interpretation. It is purposeful, deft, and utterly surprising—the kind of story people read and wish they had written themselves.’

    Shashi Bhat, Judge, Canada and Europe Region

    Julie Bouchard, a Montreal native and current resident, has released two collections of short stories and a novel over the last decade with La Pleine Lune, a Quebec-based publishing house. She was awarded the Radio-Canada Short Story Prize in both 2020 and 2021. She currently works in academic publishing.

    Arielle Aaronson translated “Ce qui brûle” from French into English. Her translations have been shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award and longlisted for the 2021 Canada Reads book of the year. Arielle lives in Montreal, Quebec with her family.

    ‘This story began to take root within me as Montreal awoke under an intense smell of smoke, a consequence of the fires ravaging the boreal forest further north. Around the same time, a historic building in Old Montreal was engulfed in flames. A few weeks later, I also attended the cremation of a woman—in a cemetery emerging from a fifteen-month strike—and the sight of those glowing red bones deeply impacted me, as I saw in it a poetic image of renewal. Thus, all around me, I perceived nothing but burning. The convergence of these events quietly ignited something within me which gave birth to this tale of fire.’

    - Julie Bouchard
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • Caribbean
    'The Devil’s Son'
    Portia Subran
    Trinidad and Tobago

    A song jolts the memory of a retired oil field worker, to a simpler time in Trinidad and Tobago, and forces him to re-live a dark secret he kept buried all these years. ‘The Devil’s Son’ is set in the 1950s, where the Promethean tool of Electricity comes to the village of Chaguanas to pull them out of the darkness of night, and out of superstition.

    Read their story on Granta (external)

    ‘Portia Subran’s ‘The Devil’s Son’ is immense, gripping—a wonder. The writer holds an earnest reverence for the musicality of language, and the magic that courses through the Caribbean landscape, and utilises both to create a tale that harnesses horror, myth, and the colonial utility of religion to explore a deeply personal, family trauma. The story poses questions of history and memory, objective and subjective truth, and metaphorises the advent of electricity in central Trinidad as a fledgling epistemology challenging the religious hegemony. This is a memorable story that balances darkness with bright humour, a testament to the writer’s remarkable voice and brilliant technique.’

    Richard Georges, Judge, Caribbean Region

    Portia Subran is a writer and ink artist, from Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago. Her stories are inspired by her parents’ tales of colonial, and early post-colonial Trinidad, her experience, and Ole Talk gathered over the years. She is the winner of the 2019 Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize from the Caribbean Writer, and the 2016 Small Axe Literary Short Story Competition. She was a finalist for the 2022 BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest.

    Photo: @ravindraramkallawanphotography

    ‘I have a compendium of ancestral information fermenting inside my head, and I have no choice but to weave them and create something that will last. The men and women in my family are heroes and inspire me.’

    ‘Caribbean experiences are laced with anger, laughter, pleasure, sadness and secrets. My story ‘The Devil’s Son’ is no different.  The setting is based on the pre-independent memories of my parents, but the plot grew out of my own thoughts on superstition, grief and the lies we tell ourselves (and others), to ensure our survival.’

    - Portia Subran
    Listen to the author talk about their submission
  • The Shortlist

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist was announced on 17 April. The 23 writers have been selected by an international judging panel from 7,359 entries in a record-breaking year.  

    This year’s shortlist hail from 13 Commonwealth countries. Writers from Mauritius, Rwanda and St Kitts and Nevis feature for the very first time.  

    Many of the stories are told through the eyes of children—tales of parents splitting up, of school, and of the often baffling behaviour of adults around them. Older characters also appear—sometimes destructive, sometimes inspiring. Five of the stories reflect on motherhood in very different ways. Others tell of forbidden love in a hostile world. Topics range from music, football, art, film, the impact of electricity arriving in a village, and even one woman’s passion for tea.  While romance and thrillers feature prominently, nearly a quarter of the shortlisted stories are speculative fiction. 

    Chair of the Judges, Ugandan-British novelist and short story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi says: ‘This is a dream list for lovers of the short story form. You’ll be amazed and thrilled, startled and shocked, and heartbroken and humbled in equal measure by the skill and talent, imagination and creativity.’ 

    Dr Anne T. Gallagher AO, Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, added: ‘The Short Story Prize is legendary for unearthing and nurturing the rich creative talent of our Commonwealth. This year is no exception. My congratulations to the 23 writers whose stories will now secure a truly global audience.’ 

    • 'A River Then the Road'
      Pip Robertson
      New Zealand

      A 12-year-old girl and her brother visit their troubled father for the weekend. Mistrust of her own body and a sense of duty to protect her father from the consequences of his actions lead her into danger.

      ‘Alexis woke to pain in her stomach. The room was dark and still, and she could tell straight away that their dad was out. The pain came and went, a dull stabbing. After a while, headlights glared through the thin curtain, swooped across the wall.’

      Pip Robertson has had short stories published in journals and anthologies in print and online. She has a Master of Arts from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand, with her partner, daughter and dogs.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Dite'
      Reena Usha Rungoo
      Mauritius

      Dite, which means ‘tea’ in Creole, is an exploration of a Mauritian woman’s love of tea and of her ties to the colonial history of tea. Each tea in her collection contains an olfactory memory in which her relationship with education, language, sex and other women is captured.

      ‘As Durga inhaled the tea her mother had made her, its aroma bloomed into a remembrance as intense and engulfing as it was evanescent. A childhood memory, which had coalesced around the long-buried but instantly familiar fragrance of the tea, invaded her nostrils.’

      Reena Usha Rungoo is a Mauritian writer, scholar, teacher, speaker, and mother. As an islander, an African and a diasporic South Asian, she uses the language of fiction (whether as a writer or a literary critic) to speak on how colonial violence infiltrates our beings, our languages and our desires, and on the creative ways in which we resist. She is an assistant professor of literature at Harvard University.

      Photo: Ashvin Ramdin

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Nobody Owns a Fire'
      Jennifer Severn
      Australia

      Two men explore a later-life sexual re-awakening against a small-town culture that demands conformity and secrecy.

      ‘Yeah, nobody owned a fire, and you never knew who would turn up, drawn by some primeval force—warmth and light, sure, but something more, something timeworn and holy. He caught himself, getting all philosophical again. He scuffed the toe of his boot in the charcoal-flecked dirt.’

      Jennifer Severn has worked as a commercial and technical writer and has always written for pleasure. She has written local interest stories for her local community newspaper, The Triangle, since 2003. Her manuscript Long Road to Dry River was shortlisted for the Finch Prize for Memoir in 2018. An early manuscript for her novella Garnet was shortlisted for the Viva la Novella prize in 2022. Read her blog at www.jennifersevern.com.au.

      Photo: John van Horssen

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Manananggal'
      M Donato
      New Zealand

      While visiting the Philippines, a young woman becomes entangled in the life and fate of her cousin, Magda.

      ‘Mirinda doused herself with the hose first, then me. The water was blood warm. I closed my eyes and turned slowly in the baptismal spray, pretending not to be disappointed. There was a clap of skin, jandals slapping the road and the soles of feet. It was a group of grinning men in loose singlets and basketball shorts.’

      M Donato is a Filipino-New Zealander living in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara. She has a BA in English Literature from Victoria University and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her work has been published in Turbine, Newsroom, and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa, New Zealand.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Wrinkle Release'
      Stefan Bindley-Taylor
      Trinidad and Tobago

      A young narrator moves to New York in the year 2058 and befriends a local laundromat owner. Things take a turn as the narrator discovers that the laundromat owner is actually a former reggae star who plans to use a washing machine to turn back time for one final concert.

      ‘The laundromat itself, however, was a bit less so. The walls had faded into a sun-bleached algae color, and the floor was peppered with mildew and dust. Beige washing machines and dryers stood in neat rows, threaded together by a mysterious configuration of clunky aluminum tubing.’

      Stefan Bindley-Taylor is a Trinidadian-American musician, writer, and educator. Raised in Maryland, he currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Through his writing, he renders absurdist and surrealist worlds from a West Indian perspective. His prose is inspired by the work of authors such as V.S. Naipaul, Gish Jen, and Frantz Fanon. As a musician, he performs in a self-produced hardcore project called FISHLORD and an alternative hip-hop project called Nafets.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'So Clean'
      Anna Woods
      New Zealand

      ‘So Clean’ is the story of a young woman forced to face her many fears before they consume her.

      ‘Still on the bed, Bel opens her eyes. The light has dropped, gone bluish and the air has a bite, the smell of compost has receded. The party will be getting going now. She wants to go back but her mother is right. Life’s dirty. Life’s hard.’

      Anna Woods is a writer from Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Landfall, takahē, The Poetry NZ Yearbook and Geometry, amongst others. Her work has been recognised with various awards and residencies. Most recently, one of her stories won New Zealand’s richest short story competition, the Sargeson Prize. She holds a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'You Had Me at Aloe'
      Ark Ramsay
      Barbados

      In the shadow of inevitable grief, a young transfeminine person distrusts the promises of a new love.

      ‘I crossed the road and bought two large pizzas, topped with cheese and an oil spill, devoured both next to the sidewalk. I learned there, fingers patinaed with grease, how to stitch all that hurt to my ribs, telling myself that it would be survivable that way.’

      Ark Ramsay (Bridgetown, 1994) is a non-binary writer currently based in Barbados. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The A-Line: Journal of Progressive Thought, Small Axe, Gertrude Press, Meridian, The Rumpus, Passages North, and The Gulf Coast. Their writing has also been a finalist for the Inaugural Story Foundation Prize through Story Magazine and an honourable mention in Ninth Letter’s 2021 Literary Award for Nonfiction. They received an MFA from The Ohio State University in 2022.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Terre Brulée'
      Celeste Mohammed
      Trinidad and Tobago

      ‘Terre Brulée’ is a post-colonial story that chronicles the fraught and disastrous relationship between Pinky Khan and her son, Shiva.

      ‘I find the Deed paper for this property: 33 Terre Brulée Road. From Mr. Edward Stone to me, Pinkie Khan. This coulda be Shiva own. I never tell he wotless father ’bout this, and I never tell he neither. I did hold back because I didn’t want no man—not even my son—to love me for land.’

      Celeste Mohammed is a Trinidadian lawyer-turned-writer. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her short stories have won numerous awards. As a ‘dougla’ or ‘half-Indian’, Celeste hails from a line of humble but resilient Indo-Trinidadian women, who faced a post-plantation culture marked by intimate-partner violence. Her new and yet unpublished novel grapples with this complicacted history.

      Photo: Damian Luk Pat Photography

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Thambi, Thambi'
      Bharath Kumar
      India

      Set in rural Tamil Nadu in the nineties, Thambi, Thambi explores friendship and grief through an unlikely relationship between a sensitive young boy and a woman with a mental illness.

      ‘When I stepped out of home, preparing for a new school in the city, Kamala lingered in my mind like a vivid snapshot of memories. Amidst the flurry of farewells, her presence felt like an unspoken burden of the past. Yet, as life evolved in our village, Kamala’s absence left a silent void, echoing the untold tales of her mysterious existence.’

      Bharath Kumar is a writer and translator from Tamil Nadu, India. He has a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a Master’s degree in Philosophy. He was one of the editors of the Oxford University Press’s English-Tamil bilingual dictionary project. His works have appeared in the Usawa Literary Review, Out of Print Magazine‘s blog, and the book I, Salma. He is a South Asia Speaks Fellow who is currently working on his debut collection of short stories.

      Photo: Deepti Sreeram

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Aishwarya Rai'
      Sanjana Thakur
      India

      The first mother is too clean; the second, too pretty. In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches laundry turn round in her machine, dreams of white limousines, and tries out different mothers from the shelter. One of them has to be just right.

      ”I am sorry to upset you,’ Nazneen says, switching off the tap and wringing the shirt with all the ferocity of a TurboDry until the excess water has sweated out. ‘But I don’t think you will find what you are looking for in a new mother.”

      Sanjana Thakur has a degree in English and Anthropology from Wellesley College, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction at UT Austin’s New Writers Project. Her short story Backstroke was published in The Southampton Review. She is from Mumbai, India.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Mother May I'
      Ajay Patri
      India

      In ‘Mother May I’, a woman who makes a living pretending to be other people has to contend with an assignment in which the lines between reality and fiction threaten to become indistinguishable.

      ‘I peel the sweater away from my armpits and then run a finger around its collar to separate it from my neck. My skin is clammy, there is sweat pooling behind my ears, and it feels as if there’s sweat clogging up my nose as well, making it difficult for me to breathe.’

      Ajay Patri is a writer and lawyer from Bangalore, India, and an incoming MFA in Fiction candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His work has been published in the Bristol Short Story Prize anthology in the past. He is also the recipient of a fellowship from South Asia Speaks, a mentorship programme for early career writers.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'When Things End'
      Sarah Balakrishnan
      Canada

      A white Zimbabwean professor, attracted to his young student, begins an affair that threatens to derail both of their lives.

      ‘Two weeks, three days: that is how long he is put on bed rest. Time itself begins to impress on Harry with new meaning. The days draw listless light across the shape of his bed. At sundown, he awaits Helen’s return from campus, her briefcase stocked with thoughtful cards from their students and well-meaning colleagues, her arms laden with the books for him that have arrived that day in the mail.’

      Sarah Balakrishnan is a Canadian writer from Cambridge, Ontario. She is a graduate of McGill University and Harvard University. She teaches classes on history at Duke University. Sarah was the 2022 Narrative Prize winner, the 2021 winner of Narrative Magazine’s 30 Under contest, and a 2021 finalist for the Cecilia Joyce Johnson Award for Short Fiction. She is represented by Ellen Levine and Audrey Crooks at Trident Media Group Literary Agency.

      Photo: Adam Ewing

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'What Burns'
      Julie Bouchard
      Canada

      ‘What Burns’ aims to be a narrative exploration—through flames, red bones and ashes—of the living forces that are consumed within and around us in this fiery 21st century.

      ‘Since, according to experts’ calculations, the fire is advancing at around 500 metres a day. In less than 48 hours and unless weather conditions change, the town of K., located on the edge of the forest, will be engulfed in flames too’

      Julie Bouchard, a Montreal native and current resident, has released two collections of short stories and a novel over the last decade with La Pleine Lune, a Quebec-based publishing house. She was awarded the Radio-Canada Short Story Prize in both 2020 and 2021. She currently works in academic publishing.

      Arielle Aaronson translated “Ce qui brûle” from French into English. Her translations have been shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award and longlisted for the 2021 Canada Reads book of the year. Arielle lives in Montreal, Quebec with her family.

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Your Own Dear, Obedient Daughters'
      F.E. Choe
      Canada

      A plague of bodies descends upon a village. Will the community survive such a reckoning?

      ‘The grandmothers brush the dirt out of the dead women’s hair, wipe clean their faces, bathe and dress them in patchwork hanboks beaten and starched white. Some nights Ae-Cha slips silently into the icehouse alone. She sits for hours in the dark, fights off sleep and the cold ache in her hips as she tries to catch the women out.’

      F.E. Choe is a Canadian and Korean-American writer whose work has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine, The Moth Magazine, and Fractured Lit. She is a 2023 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, Viable Paradise alum, and an Editor at 100 Word Story. Born in Toronto, Canada, she currently lives in the United States.

      Photo: Covington Hanley

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Milk'
      Eaton Hamilton
      Canada

      Milk is fundamentally a story about love and hope in a milieu of deep poverty.

      ‘I trudged home from school through dirty snow and mud. The temps seesawed high and low, slicking the paths. I ripped off and handed Mama the paper stapled to the door, which I had failed to read.

      She marched to the kitchen in her hot pink robe and burned the paper inside a cooking pot inside the sink—crashes, bangs and curses–until it was nothing but black ash, and then she turned the tap right into it.’

      Eaton Hamilton is the autistic, disabled, queer and non-binary (they/them) author of books of cnf, memoir, fiction and poetry, including the 2016 novel WEEKEND. Their memoir NO MORE HURT was one of the Guardian’s Best Books of the Year and a Sunday Times bestseller. They are the two-time winner of Canada’s CBC Literary Award for fiction (2003/2014).

      Listen to the author talk about their submission
    • 'Sookie Woodrow Goes to Heaven'
      Ceilidh Michelle
      Canada

      A single mother named Sookie Woodrow believes God is using her to prophecy, but her desperation to transcend the hand she’s been dealt descends into madness.

      ‘Early morning sun revealed the dripping tap, the crooked shelves, a light bulb dangling from a wire. ‘So? What was Sookie talking to you about the other night?’ My mother strained to keep her voice light, tinkling her fingernails on the side of her mug. Smile tight as a rubber band.’

      Ceilidh Michelle is the author of Butterflies, Zebras, Moonbeams, published by Palimpsest Press and shortlisted for the Hugh MacLennan Award for Fiction. Her second book, Vagabond: Venice Beach, Slab City and Points In Between, was published by Douglas & McIntyre in September 2020. Her novella, Living Waters, was shortlisted in the Malahat Review’s Novella Prize, and she’s been listed twice by the CBC as an author to watch. Michelle has contributed to Maclean’s Magazine, Room, Saltwire, Long Reads, and others. She holds an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh.

    • 'The Devil’s Son'
      Portia Subran
      Trinidad and Tobago

      A song jolts the memory of a retired oil field worker, to a simpler time in Trinidad and Tobago, and forces him to re-live a dark secret he kept buried all these years. ‘The Devil’s Son’ is set in the 1950s, where the Promethean tool of Electricity comes to the village of Chaguanas to pull them out of the darkness of night, and out of superstition.

      ‘That night, Mammy was protesting—I coulda hear she from the roadside. She didn’t like that they did set up a Devil’s Screen in the middle of Woodford Lodge Cricket Grounds, that we would all be gazing up at it.’

      Portia Subran is a writer and ink artist, from Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago. Her stories are inspired by her parents’ tales of colonial, and early post-colonial Trinidad, her experience, and Ole Talk gathered over the years. She is the winner of the 2019 Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize from the Caribbean Writer, and the 2016 Small Axe Literary Short Story Competition. She was a finalist for the 2022 BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest.

      Photo: @ravindraramkallawanphotography

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    • 'Fadi'
      Azags Agandaa
      Ghana

      Fadi is a story about grief, disability, homelessness—and love, despite all the above. It follows Baba and his autistic daughter, Fadi, as they seek a safe home.

      ‘Fadi is growing tall and fat by day. He relishes eating the food, too, though he hates being pitied, fed, and treated as a beggar. He no longer feels disgusted eating with the left hand. He no longer retches eating with it as he’d done the earlier days after the right hand was cut off when he fell off the wall of the tall building he was painting.’

      Azags Agandaa is a Ghanaian writer whose collection of short stories, The Slummer’s Curse (2019) won the Ama Ata Aidoo Award 2nd Prize of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) Literary Awards. Aguriboma (2022), his poetry collection, also won the Kofi Awoonor’s Prize of the same Literary Awards. He teaches English and Literature at The Victoria Grammar School, Accra, and is currently completing his MPhil in Literature at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.

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    • 'House No. 49'
      Olajide Omojarabi
      Nigeria

      The arrival of a new scout in town dashes five boys’ dreams of playing football in England’s top-flight clubs.

      ‘Me and my teammates are behind, huddling around Celestine’s father. Even though Rising Stars didn’t fulfill their promise, new football academies will come to town again. We won’t lose our legs or arms to stampedes or gunshots. In protests, things happen too fast.’

      Olajide is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of South Florida. Recently he was the fiction editor at Saw Palm, and has published works in Guernica, Off Assignment, Barren magazine and elsewhere. He’s currently working on his debut novel.

      Photo: Chioma Owhor

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    • 'A Song Sung in Secret'
      Jayne Bauling
      South Africa

      A chance encounter between long-lost acquaintances becomes the first step towards healing.

      ‘Another man behind the woman, standing. He looks as afflicted as you feel, overheated and fretful. Behind him, Solomzi. A mask and a hat, what do they call those hats? He was always a hat man. Between mask and hat, not much to see, except lines where he once was smooth.’

      Jayne Bauling is a South African writer best known for her youth novels which have won several awards. She also writes short stories and poetry, and has contributed to the FunDza Literacy Trust. Her tenth novel for youth, Things I Learned in the Forest, was published by the NB Publishers imprint Best Books in early 2023. She lives in White River, in the province of Mpumalanga.

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    • 'The Goat'
      Jean Pierre Nikuze
      Rwanda

      ‘The Goat’ is about a woman whose newborn is stolen from the maternity ward, and her own unusual way of dealing with the loss, which is complicated by her relationship with a billy goat her husband bought as their son’s birth gift.

      ‘Achan’s hands trembled, releasing the contents inside them to the floor. She, too, suddenly feeling an urge to lay on the ground, slipped to the floor. Her back against a kitchen wall stained with smoke and cooking vapors, she wept. She wept and screamed so that the radio was no longer of any use, and if the doors had banged for the wind she would have missed it.’

      Jean Pierre Nikuze is a Rwandan who grew up in Kenya, and is currently residing in Vancouver, Canada, where he is attending graduate school at Regent College. A writer of stories, poems, and essays, Nikuze’s work has appeared in CalibanOnline, The Nonconformist Magazine, Agbowo, Hobart, Africasacountry, and elsewhere.

      Photo: Lorna Rande

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    • 'The Marriage Proposal'
      Heather Archibald
      St Kitts and Nevis

      ‘The Marriage Proposal’ features an older woman, Adeline, who has agreed to raise the children of a couple who has moved to the United Kingdom with hopes to save money before they return to their Island home. Adeline’s attachment to the children means she must make sacrifices.

      ‘Adeline tensed slightly, but settled the baby on her right leg, enclosing her with her right hand. “Ok, Sweet English rose, Le’s take it easy now, eh.”

      “She’ll be okay,” the mother said quickly. She pulled from her bag an eight-ounce bottle which had about three ounces of formula left in it.’

      Heather Archibald, taught English in New York City and St. Kitts for thirty years. Her poetry collection Home-Home was published in 2016. She was a Callaloo fellow in poetry (2016) and received the BRIO award for fiction in 2018. Her short story, Sea-Stones for Angeline: A Fairy Tale was published in The Caribbean Writer (UVI) Summer 2020. Heather co-curates Creative Expressions NYC, an open-mic online poetry salon currently meeting first Sundays.

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    • 'The Woman Upstairs'
      Audrey Tan
      Singapore

      This is a story about a girl who finds herself in a precarious situation. She becomes conscious of an unseen woman whom she feels connected to and protected by, even though she isn’t sure if the woman is a product of her own imagination.

      ‘Pei sat by the pool, rocking herself so she would stop shivering in her wet bra and shorts. She sat for a long time, watching the bougainvillaea and heliconia blazing among the dark bushes of the estate. As a child, she’d learnt what these tropical flowers were called.’

      Audrey Tan is a Singaporean writer, teacher and editor. Her stories have appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Singapore Unbound, among others.

      Photo: Reginald Kent

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    This year’s judging panel

    • Photo: Danny Moran

      Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

      Chair

      Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi wrote The First Woman (2020), which in 2021 won the Jhalak Prize, was shortlisted for The Diverse Book Award, the Encore Prize and the James Tait Black Prize, and longlisted for The Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013, the Prix Transfuge du meilleur premier roman francais in 2019 and, in the same year, she was shortlisted for Edward Stanford Awards and longlisted for the Prix Médicis. Her collection of short stories, Manchester Happened, was shortlisted for The Big Book prize: Harper’s Bazaar in 2019 and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Jennifer was the recipient of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize in 2018. She was also the overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014. She was part of the DAAD Artist-inBerlin programme in 2022 and currently she is Artist in Residence at STIAS Stellenbosch. She has a PhD from Lancaster University and has taught in several universities in the United Kingdom.

    • Keletso Mopai

      Judge, Africa Region

      Keletso Mopai is a South African writer and geologist. Her award-nominated and acclaimed debut collection of short stories If You Keep Digging, a social commentary on Post-Apartheid South Africa, was published in 2019 by Blackbird Books. Her work has been published in several journals internationally including Internazionale, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Catapult, Portside Review, Imbiza Journal, Kaleidoscope Magazine, Lolwe, and anthologies such as Joburg Noir. She returned to university in 2022 to pursue an MA in creative writing at The University of Cape Town where she wrote a novel-in-stories about a farm murder set in her hometown, Tzaneen.

    • O Thiam Chin

      Judge, Asia Region

      O Thiam Chin is a short story writer, screenwriter, and novelist from Singapore. His work has been published in Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Mānoa, The Brooklyn Rail, World Literature Today, The International Literary Quarterly, Asia Literary Review, Kyoto Journal, The Jakarta Post and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. Thrice longlisted for the Frank O’ Connor International Short Story Award, he is the author of six story-collections, including Love, Or Something Like Love, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize. His debut novel, Now That It’s Over, won the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 and the Best Fiction title at the 2017 Singapore Book Awards. His second novel, Fox Fire Girl, is currently being adapted into a feature film. He was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, and a recipient of the Singapore National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2012.

    • Photo: Olivia Li

      Shashi Bhat

      Judge, Canada and Europe Region

      Shashi Bhat is the author of the forthcoming story collection Death by a Thousand Cuts (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada), and the novels The Most Precious Substance on Earth (McClelland &Stewart/Grand Central), a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Award for fiction, and The Family Took Shape (Cormorant), a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Her fiction has won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, and has appeared in publications across North America, including The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Stories, and The Journey Prize Stories. Shashi holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Cornell University. She lives in New Westminster, BC, where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.

    • Photo: Ignus Dreyer

      Richard Georges

      Judge, Caribbean Region

      Richard Georges is a writer of essays, fiction, and three collections of poetry. His most recent book, Epiphaneia (2019), won the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and his first book, Make Us All Islands (2017), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Richard is a founding editor of Moko magazine, a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, and the first Poet Laureate of the British Virgin Islands. He works in higher education and lives on Tortola with his wife and children.

    • Photo: Glenn Hunt

      Melissa Lucashenko

      Judge, Pacific Region

      Melissa Lucashenko is a multi-award winning Bundjalung novelist from Brisbane. She is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction writing and a founding member of human rights group Sisters Inside.

    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 regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives a total of £5,000. The winning stories are published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink. The shortlisted stories are published in adda, the online literary magazine of the Commonwealth Foundation.

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

    4. The prize is only open to short fiction, but it can be in any fiction genre–science fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, crime, romance, literary fiction–and you may write about any subject you wish.

    5. Submissions are accepted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, English, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted and the translator of any winning story receives additional prize money.

    6. Your submission must be unpublished in any print or online publication, with the exception of personal websites.

    7. Entries are initially assessed by a team of readers and a longlist of 200 entries is put before the international judging panel, comprising a chair and five judges, one from each of the Commonwealth regions – Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. All judges read entries from all regions.

      Entries in other languages are assessed by relevant language readers and the best submissions are selected for translation into English to be considered for inclusion on the longlist.

      The judging panel select a shortlist of around twenty stories, from which five regional winners are chosen, one of which is chosen as the overall winner.