To celebrate 10 years of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize we are inviting previous winners to share something new with us—it might be a story, a podcast, an interview or a blog. Here 2017 Prize winner Ingrid Persaud is in conversation with author and judge Jacob Ross. To read Ingrid’s prizewinning story from 2017, click here.
Listen to Ingrid and Jacob discussing ‘The Sweet Sop’ and Ingrid’s award-winning new novel Love After Love, as well as language, the rise of Trinidadian women writers, homosexuality in the Caribbean, the craft of writing, and much else besides.
Ingrid Persaud
Born in Trinidad, Ingrid Persaud won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017 and the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. She read law at the LSE and was an academic before studying fine art at Goldsmiths and Central Saint Martins. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Prospect, The Guardian, The Independent, National Geographic, Five Dials and Pree magazines. Her novel, Love After Love, won the Costa First Novel Award 2020.
Jacob Ross
Jacob Ross was born in Grenada and lives in Britain. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is the author of three acclaimed collections of short stories, A Way to Catch the Dust, Song for Simone, and Tell No-One About This. His first novel Pynter Bender was published in September 2008 to much critical acclaim. His second book, The Bone Readers, a crime thriller, won the inaugural Jhalak Prize in 2017. His most recent crime novel, Black Rain Falling, was published in spring 2020. Ross is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Associate Fiction Editor at Peepal Tree Press. He was a judge for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
