Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Shortlist

• 'Orchard of Blackbirds' , Lois Akoma Antwi
  Ghana
• 'The Runner's Gift' , Ken Odak Odumbe
  Kenya
• 'The God under the Bed' , Dawn Immanuel 
  Nigeria
• 'Arewa Girls' , Hussani Abdulrahim
  Nigeria
• 'Shock Me I Shock You' , Ola W. Halim
  Nigeria
• 'New Things' , Oluwatoke Adejoye 
  Nigeria
• 'Me and Ma'am' , Lisa-Anne Julien
  South Africa
• 'A Masculine Fest' , Anmana Manishita
  Bangladesh
• 'Mofiz - er Relation e Spark Nai' , Shazed Ul Hoq Abir
  Bangladesh
• 'Thirty-One Steps' , Rafaa Dalvi
  India
• 'Fighting Elsewhere' , Rupsa Dey
  India
• 'Mehendi Nights' , Sharon Aruparayil 
  India
• 'Separuh Yang Hilang' , Mohamed Nasser Mohamed 
  Malaysia
• 'The Miles Between Us' , Jacqueline Chang
  Singapore
• 'The Bastion's Shadow' , John Edward DeMicoli
  Malta
• 'Saudade' , Alison Armstrong
  United Kingdom
• 'Chiddingfold' , Jennifer Harvey
  United Kingdom
• 'The Metamorphosis of Miss Alice' , Cosmata Lindie
  Guyana
• 'Plenty Time' , Celeste Mohammed
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'The Serpent in the Grove' , Jamir Nazir
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'Pom Pom Peedeem Pom' , Jason Dookeran
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'River Mouth' , Jochelle Greaves Siew
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'Pot Hound Republic' , Roger-Mark De Souza
  Trinidad and Tobago
• 'Bitter Water Village' , M.S. Bhatia 
  Australia
• 'Second Skin' , Holly Ann Miller
  New Zealand

• Orchard of Blackbirds

  Lois Akoma Antwi

  Ghana

  Told in the voice of a fourteen-year-old girl in a Bosnian town on the eve of war, this is a story of blue sneakers, stolen plums and a childhood unravelling. It traces the quiet days before violence arrives and the irreversible moment it does.

  ‘They came in the morning, when Mama’s bread was still rising and Baba had just left for the railway yard. At first, I thought it was a parade. Boots thundered against the street. I pressed my face to the glass, expecting flags, drums, maybe even music like in the old festivals.’ 

  Lois Akoma Antwi is a Ghanaian writer who gives narrative form to the human cost of war. She holds a degree in Political Science and English and is completing postgraduate studies in International Affairs and Diplomacy. Drawn to the human cost of conflict, she writes stories that give life to those history sidelines. Orchard of Blackbirds is her first internationally recognised work. 

• The Runner's Gift

  Ken Odak Odumbe

  Kenya

  Set in Kenya’s highland running culture, ‘The Runner’s Gift’ follows Mercy, a gifted distance runner contending with inherited scars, family survival, and the hidden cost of excellence.

  ‘She remembers the first time. Sixteen years old, Thomas shouting encouragement. The metallic taste surprising her. “It’s nothing,” Thomas had said, wiping his own mouth. “The altitude gifts us blood. It’s the price. Keep running.”’

  Ken Odak Odumbe is a development professional and creative writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. He uses creative arts to depict and communicate complex societal issues. With over 19 years of experience in international development, he has engaged diverse stakeholders across Kenya, the African continent, and global platforms. He excels at bridging development perspectives and creative expression. 

• The God under the Bed

  Dawn Immanuel 

  Nigeria

  In an overcrowded family home governed by an unseen god, a young girl comes of age under rigid rules, until one restless night when she decides to go in search of the truth.

  ‘Deep within those shadows, the god made itself at home. I have never seen it, so I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. I’m not sure anyone in my family ever has either, at least not clearly.’   

  Dawn Immanuel is a Nigerian writer and editor based in Ibadan. Driven by curiosity and random thoughts in the shower, she tells fiction and nonfiction stories of bold people, and of those who cannot tell their own. Dawn is also the founder of Patchwork Quilt, an end-to-end book production studio. The God under the Bed is her debut short story.

  Photo: Tomiwa Ajayi

• Arewa Girls

  Hussani Abdulrahim

  Nigeria

  Narrated in the first-person plural (“we”), Arewa Girls journeys through the shared experience of Northern Nigerian women inhibited by patriarchal and religious-cultural norms. It’s a work of social realism that blurs the line between fiction and manifesto, mapping the emotional and generational inheritance of suppression, internalised misogyny, and the gradual awakening of self-awareness.

  ‘We are not doctors saving lives in hospitals. But that’s fine. We save lives in our own way. We are miraculous.’ 

  Hussani Abdulrahim is a Nigerian writer. He was shortlisted for the 2024 ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award. He won the 2023 Writivism Prize, the 2022 Toyin Falola Prize, and WRRs 2016 Green Author Prize. He was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2023. His work has appeared in Boston Review, Evergreen Review, Ubwali Lit Mag, ZamaShort, and The Flame Tree Writers Workshop Anthology. Hussani lives in Kano, Nigeria.

• Shock Me I Shock You

  Ola W. Halim

  Nigeria

  Two siblings navigate family dysfunction and personal identities through a mischievous game.

  ‘From the window, Oyin and I watch her for a while. We try to guess what she’s whispering, why her lips move so quickly. Eventually Oyin decides it’s not our cup of garri, that she’s Daddy’s responsibility, and so we pull down the curtains and sit on the centre rug to play Shock-Me-I-Shock-You.’ 

  Ola W. Halim is a 2022 fellow of the Literary Laddership for Emerging African Authors. His work appears in SmokeLong Quarterly, Fractured Lit, Lolwe, Iskanchi, adda, The Forge, and the Best Small Fictions 2024. His short story, An Analysis of a Fragile Affair, was shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. A finalist for Gerald Kraak Prize 2022, his stories have received the Pushcart and Caine Prize nominations.  
  

• New Things

  Oluwatoke Adejoye 

  Nigeria

  Set in Akure, 1999, during Nigeria’s transition to democracy and on the cusp of the new millennium, this story follows a teenage boy who loses his sole caretaker and must learn to navigate living with a new guardian and a country reinventing itself.

  ‘Rolake came to me in the middle of the night, while the pastor was holding a night-til-daybreak prayer vigil in the church. It was like that first day that she entered. No knock. No invitation.’ 

  Oluwatoke Adejoye is a Nigerian-born writer whose work has appeared in Harvard’s Transition Magazine, Room Magazine, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. A lawyer by training with a professional background in film and publishing, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She lives and works in Metro Vancouver, Canada.

  Photo: Sina Agunbiade

• Me and Ma'am

  Lisa-Anne Julien

  South Africa

  A day in the life of the tangled relationship between a domestic worker and her employer.

  ‘Ma’am means well, even if she does choose the most inconvenient times to try and change my life.’ 

  Lisa-Anne, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, lives in Johannesburg. She received a Highly Commended Award in the 2008/09 Commonwealth Short Story competition. Her novel, If You Save Me, won the University of Johannesburg’s 2022 Debut Prize for Fiction. She was shortlisted in The Fountain Magazine’s 2024 Essay Prize and her fiction has appeared in Pree, the Caribbean literary magazine. Her writing residencies include Femrite, Yale Writers, and the Jakes Gerwel Foundation.

• A Masculine Fest

  Anmana Manishita

  Bangladesh

  Set in 1950s East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, the story is about a young Bengali Muslim woman navigating the unexpected realities of womanhood.

  ‘They were not like the men of our house. They glimmered and glittered, like light rippling off from a crisp new note; our men were sovereigns—a grounded heaviness about them.’ 

  Anmana Manishita is working as a lecturer at BRAC University, and as an editorial assistant at University Press Limited. She has completed her Bachelors and Masters in English and English Literature from University of Dhaka. She loves to stare at the wall beside her bed, and she longs to have time enough to do nothing, so that she can do the things she loves to do. 

• Mofiz - er Relation e Spark Nai

  Shazed Ul Hoq Abir

  Bangladesh

  A man in a Sundarbans village runs to revive the spark in his failing marriage while modern development slowly unsettles the fragile balance of his world.

  Translated from Bengali into English by Arunava Sinha and Shabnam Nadiya. 

  ‘He would have to build electrical power by running. “But it won’t do to run at any old speed.” Mafiz looked worried. ‘You said I have to run at the speed of light. How can a human run as fast as light?’’ 

  Shazed ul Hoq Khan Abir is a Bangladeshi writer born and raised in Dhaka. He studied English at Dhaka University. He has published eleven books in Bengali and received the Kali o Kalam Young Fiction Writer Award from Bengal Foundation in 2025. His play was staged by Dhaka Theatre in 2025. He also writes songs and makes documentaries, often drawing inspiration from the Buriganga River and the layered history of his city. 

• Thirty-One Steps

  Rafaa Dalvi

  India

  Unfolding through a father’s nine-year vigil at Amritsar Junction, this is a story of waiting and the unbearable distance between a son who cannot return and parents who refuse to stop believing he will.

  ‘The bench at Platform Three had learnt the shape of Singh’s body. Nine years of waiting had carved his outline into the wooden slats. His tan suit, pressed each morning by his wife despite his protests, hung loose on bones that grew thinner with each passing train.’ 

  Rafaa Dalvi is a Mumbai-based writer who writes to centre voices left out of mainstream fiction. His self-published works include the micro-fiction trilogy Small is Big and short story collections Chasing Nirvana and Paasa Palat. An Amazon Pen to Publish runner-up and finalist, and an India Book of Records holder, he has an MBA from NMIMS, Mumbai. He is currently editing his debut literary novel, Brittle Gods.

• Fighting Elsewhere

  Rupsa Dey

  India

  He could not tell his mother that he lost his job in Prague, or that he is gay, or that he supports her through sex work. When words hide, silence speaks out.

  ‘My mother never feared to tell me where I might encounter trouble, which life decision would become an eventual nightmare, what kind of lentil soup was tough for the stomach to digest, which red hot curry would draw the cold away from my head to my toes, and break me out in a sweat on a cold winter day. It didn’t matter that sitting in her cramped apartment in Howrah, my mother could never fathom the life I lived.’ 

  Rupsa Dey is a writer from West Bengal, India. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Jadavpur University. She is a 2023 South Asia Speaks fellow and a 2025 Breadloaf Scholar. Her work has been published in places such as Swamp Pink and Clarkesworld Magazine. She is working on her novel and drinking seven cups of tea! 

  Photo: Arko Sen

• Mehendi Nights

  Sharon Aruparayil 

  India

  In a speculative world inspired by the chawls of Mumbai, where women are forbidden language, a girl with crooked teeth and red-stained fingers discovers that desire is a dialect no man can scrub clean.

  ‘They say that a woman alone after dark was not a woman at all; she was a story already being written by someone else’s mouth.’ 

  Sharon Aruparayil is a Gulf-raised Indian writer whose work often resembles the raat ki raani (night jasmine) plant in her grandmother’s garden: quiet in daylight, rooted out of sight, and undeniable once it blooms. She is obsessed with the strange, shimmering space between the speculative and deeply personal, often asking what survives when only the body is left to speak.

  She has been nominated for the Deodar Prize, the PEN/Dau Prize for Emerging Writers, and the Pushcart Prize 2026. She is currently working on her first book, “Mehendi Nights,” inspired by the strange, cursed speculative world that took home the regional win.

• Separuh Yang Hilang

  Mohamed Nasser Mohamed 

  Malaysia

  In a flood-stricken village, a father haunted by what was taken from him learns how memory, love, and survival reshape a broken life.

  Translated from Malay into English by Pauline Fan.

  ‘People say, if a shoe has lost its pair, just throw it away. I nodded when they spoke, then quietly placed it back on the rack, aligned with my slippers and Sarah’s.’ 

  Mohamed Nasser Mohamed is a Consulting Editor involved in over 150 publications since 2008. Active as a poet and blogger, his solo book Aku Kaki Sakat appeared in 2019, alongside his well-known poem Penyair Apakah Kita Ini?, also published in Indonesia. He hosts the weekly online talk series Cakap Apa Sahaja (CAS) since March 2021 with Nuha Pictures. His recent titles include 101 Propa Kucing Rumah, 101 Perkongsian Seminit, and 101 Detik, 1 Jiwa.

  We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mohamed Nasser Mohamed shortly after the announcement of this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist.

  Mohamed’s gifted storytelling moved and impressed our judges, and we are honoured that he shared his work with the Prize this year.

• The Miles Between Us

  Jacqueline Chang

  Singapore

  This is a story of a Singaporean woman sorting through her mother’s estate, who discovers that 76,240 KrisFlyer miles cannot be inherited, transferred, or grieved. Only spent. 

  ‘The KrisFlyer miles of a dead person cannot be redeemed. The woman on the hotline said it like a line she had underlined with a ruler. Her voice carried that patient brightness unique to people trained to deliver bad news in complete sentences.’ 

  Jacqueline Chang is based in Singapore. She is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing. Her Conversational Portraits practice, which pairs extended conversation with photography, shapes how she listens and looks. Her writing finds tension in memory, family, and the ordinary.

• The Bastion's Shadow

  John Edward DeMicoli

  Malta

  In Valletta, an NGO worker helping migrants begins to sense the island’s ancient bastions as silent witnesses to memory, where history and human dignity quietly converge.

  ‘Her grandfather used to say limestone remembered, but only because someone first pressed a memory into it. It drank in heat and salt and footsteps and held them long after people were gone.’ 

  John Edward DeMicoli is a Maltese writer and genealogist whose work explores the intersections of memory, history, and identity. Drawing on archival records and Malta’s layered past, he shapes historical discoveries into narrative form. His essays on Maltese culture and heritage have appeared in print and online publications. He has completed a historical saga awaiting publication.

• Saudade

  Alison Armstrong

  United Kingdom

  An older sister tries to locate the meaning of an event in childhood.

  ‘I began to see the parrot differently after that. Looking into his cage as he looked back and bobbed his head and stepped from side to side. She made me see this sadness that I would rather not have seen. It made me extra set against her as though it were her fault, the loneliness it felt. The emptiness in the pale grey ring of its eye.’ 

  Alison Armstrong writes about memory (individual/cultural), she is interested in marginalised narratives and the way the past persists in interconnections of place. In 2024 she was a fellow of Fondation Jan Michalski. Her work has been supported by RSL, Society of Authors, ACE and New Writing North. She is working on a book about East Yorkshire. Her second novel, Museum of Infinite Light (Bluemoose) comes out next year. 

  Photo: Phoebe Cwerner

• Chiddingfold

  Jennifer Harvey

  United Kingdom

  In the summer of 1978 a woman visits an English village with her two young daughters and finds herself contemplating her life and her marriage and what it means to call a place home.

  ‘Chiddingfold. She knew nothing about it. It was simply a name she’d seen on the bus timetable. But it appealed to her in ways she couldn’t quite express. The Englishness of it. ‘Chiddingfold’. Every time she said it a picture began to form in her mind. A picture that felt more like a longing.’ 

  Originally from Glasgow, Jennifer Harvey now lives in a small coastal town in Denmark. She is the author of three novels and her short fiction has been published widely in literary magazines and anthologies. She is currently working on a new novel. When not writing she can be found walking on the beach or in the forest with her little dog.

• The Metamorphosis of Miss Alice

  Cosmata Lindie

  Guyana

  This story follows the experience of a juvenile delinquent whose interactions with a frail and forgotten old woman teaches him to believe in the power of transformation. 

  ‘He knew that his visits were not secret from Miss Alice. She had seen him many times, as he climbed and hung with monkey-like agility among the branches, high overhead. But she had never shouted at him, and her age and infirmities made it impossible for her to chase him off, like most other people did.’   

  Cosmata Lindie is a Guyanese writer and visual artist of Indigenous heritage. She was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2023 and her short fiction has been published in “adda” (UK), “Doek! Literary Magazine” (Namibia), “FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction” (USA) and in “One Day, Congotay”, a collection of Caribbean folklore themed short stories published by the Trinidad & Tobago based Caribbean Books Foundation in 2024. She currently resides in the town of New Amsterdam in Guyana.

• Plenty Time

  Celeste Mohammed

  Trinidad and Tobago

  In a Trinidadian post office, an elderly widow witnesses another woman’s desperate struggle for dignity, prompting a small act of kindness that restores her will to live.

  ‘Over the years, Mavis has become invisible to most people – especially the young ones who look right through her as if she’s made of glass.’ 

  Celeste Mohammed is a Trinidadian lawyer-turned-writer and the author of Pleasantview, winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Her second novel-in-stories, Ever Since We Small, was published in 2025. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge, Mass. A full-time writer, editor, and ghostwriter, she writes in Standard English and Trinidad Kriol while exploring the complexities of Caribbean life. She was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2024. 

• The Serpent in the Grove

  Jamir Nazir

  Trinidad and Tobago

  Set in rural Trinidad, this is a story of a struggling farmer, a silenced young wife, and a grove that seems to remember what human beings try to bury. Steeped in desire, poverty and dread, it explores betrayal, survival and the stubborn force of a woman’s will.

  ‘Ask the oldest in the village and you’ll hear some version of: “It had a well there once, and a woman. The grove ain’t forget.”’ 

  Jamir Nazir is a Trinidadian writer of East Indian heritage whose work explores the cultural intersections of the Caribbean and the Indian diaspora. A prolific poet and author, with books published and others forthcoming, he is particularly known for his love of poetry. His writing draws on the landscapes, histories and emotional rhythms of Trinidad, where memory, heritage and identity converge to shape voice and imagination. 

• Pom Pom Peedeem Pom

  Jason Dookeran

  Trinidad and Tobago

  A Trinidadian bassist flees to Lima to escape his past, but a relentless rhythm follows him across the sea, turning every sound, from factory machinery to his own heartbeat, into the music he tried to leave behind.

  ‘You can’t run from rhythm, boy. His father’s voice, salt-thick and certain. The music does find you. Always.’ 

  Jason is a Trinidadian writer exploring Caribbean identity through historical and contemporary fiction. His work ranges from pre-colonial indigenous narratives to modern urban Trinidad, examining cycles of violence, cultural survival, and moral complexity. Based in Buenos Aires, he brings an outsider-insider perspective to stories rooted in Trinidadian dialect, folklore, and the collision of tradition with contemporary realities. 

• River Mouth

  Jochelle Greaves Siew

  Trinidad and Tobago

  Set in a fishing village in southern Trinidad, this story follows Amara as the disappearance of several girls fractures her community and exposes tensions simmering beneath its quiet shoreline.

  ‘Amara wiped her hands on a rag behind the counter, watching them through the mirror over the rum bottles. Their faces looked doubled in the glass—one real, one warped—and she wondered which version told the truth.’ 

  Jochelle Greaves Siew is a Trinidadian writer and PhD candidate in Public Policy and Management. While she has previously published in academic journals, River Mouth is her first submission to a writing competition. After completing her PhD, she plans to finish her first women’s fiction novel, partly inspired by her experiences of grief and life in academia. She is also developing another manuscript drawing on Caribbean history and folklore. 

• Pot Hound Republic

  Roger-Mark De Souza

  Trinidad and Tobago

  This story, told in the voice of a sharp-tongued stray dog wandering the markets and streets of Port of Spain, highlights Trinidad’s divisions of class, belonging, and freedom—until a storm brings unexpected encounters that challenge what it means to be stray or sheltered.

  ‘In the Drag Mall, some does call it Little Africa, life beat steady like drum. Smoke and sweat rise together, making the heat shimmer. Each stall a sermon, each voice selling some kind of offering: bone, blessing, or breath. All under the same hard sun.’

  Roger-Mark De Souza is a Trinidad-born storyteller based in Washington, D.C. His fiction explores Caribbean identity, diaspora, and belonging across shifting geographies. He is currently completing “At the Ends of Islands,” a novel-in-stories tracing interconnected lives between the Caribbean and its global diaspora. His work features layered characters and reflects the complexity of diasporic life, bringing island voices and experiences into conversation with broader questions of identity, place, and connection. 

• Bitter Water Village

  M.S. Bhatia 

  Australia

  In a rain-soaked village by a restless river, a fifteen-year-old finds her childhood collapsing under the weight of family silence and unspoken danger. As the village watches and waits, she must discover what it means to endure — and who she must become to survive.

  ‘Her eyes weren’t the ones he’d left behind. Not soft, not forgiving, but cold and fixed, like river stones worn smooth by current. Wei Yoon turned, walked to her room, and shut the door she hadn’t closed since the night he disappeared.’

  M. S. Bhatia lives in Australia. “Bitter Water Village” is his first serious venture to enter a short story for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, having abandoned five previous attempts. “When the grass was white” is a short story long-listed and subsequently published in Jump (Hawkeye Publishing, Sydney, 2022). He is a former academic and educator, and head of research at AsiaRisk, an economics consultancy. He has written for various media on political-economy. He immerses in good literary fiction and non-fiction, especially from non-Western countries, and protects his solitude.    

• Second Skin

  Holly Ann Miller

  New Zealand

  Set on a farm in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa, Second Skin is a psychological examination of familial belonging in which the boundaries between humanity and nature are blurred.

  ‘Nina would do anything to preserve the softness of her son’s heart. Good things were too easily corrupted. She didn’t want him to see what she was about to do.’

  Holly Ann Miller began her creative writing journey in 2025 and, that same year, received honourable mention in both the 2025 NYC Midnight Short Story Competition and the AAASL Short Story Competition. She holds a BA in English Literature and Philosophy from Massey University and hopes to complete an MCW through them in future. She lives and works in the beautiful Bay of Islands on the East Coast of Aotearoa.

  Photo: Ruby Kawiti