Commonwealth Short Story Prize

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-in–Berlin 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.