Commonwealth Short Story Prize
2025The search for some of the Commonwealth’s best short story writers has begun again. Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and over can enter a short story of 2000-5000 words for a chance to win £5,000.
About the prize
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is open for submissions until 1 November 2024.
The prize is free to enter and open to any citizen of a Commonwealth country aged 18 and over. It is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words).
Submissions should be made via the online entry form which is available via the link above. The eligibility and entry guidelines can be found here.
An international judging panel of writers will select a shortlist of around twenty stories, from which five regional winners are chosen. One of the regional winners is then selected as the overall winner, who receives £5,000. The regional winners will receive £2,500. All five regional winning stories will be published on Granta.
Scroll down to read answers to frequently asked questions about the prize, including who can enter, how stories are judged and what languages we accept.
For any inquiries regarding the prize, please email:
creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com
Sign-up for specialised advice, tips & support.
We want to help you to write the best story you’re capable of.
Sign up to receive guidance on how to craft your short story including:
✅ How to ensure you meet the eligibility criteria
✅ Writing advice from past winners
✅ Tips to get your story submission-ready
Frequently asked questions
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If you receive a reference number on the last page of your submission, we will have received your entry. The email acknowledgement can get trapped in spam filters
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Please try from a different device and/or a different browser, using the direct link to the entry form.
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The prize is open to all Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and over – please see the full list of Commonwealth countries here.
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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.
If the winning short story is a translation into English, the translator will receive an additional prize of £750.
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The story must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.
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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.
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We accept stories written 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.
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You cannot enter a story you have submitted in previous years.
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Your submission must be unpublished in any print or online publication, with the exception of personal websites.
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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.
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Entries open from 1 September 2024 – 1 November 2024.
The other key dates for the prize are as follows:
April 2025: Shortlist revealed
May 2025: Regional winners announced
June 2025: Award ceremony and overall winner announced -
Please note that we are unable to provide feedback on submissions. We appreciate your understanding.
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If you have any questions about your submission, please email them to creatives@commonwealthfoundation.com. Be sure to include your entry submission number to ensure we can assist you promptly.
Resources & News
- 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Entry Rules
- Perfecting your story: tips for crafting your prize submission
- A short story by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Sharma Taylor in Conversation with Alexia Tolas
- Ntsika Kota in Conversation with Damon Galgut
- The Art and Craft of the Short Story
- 'The Fishing Line' by Kevin Jared Hosein
- Kritika Pandey in conversation with Nii Ayikwei Parkes
- The Origins of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize
- Commonwealth Writers’ Conversations- Cyprus at 60
This year’s judging panel
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Dr. Vilsoni Hereniko
ChairDr. Vilsoni Hereniko is an award-winning writer and filmmaker and Professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Hawaiʻi. His first narrative feature film The Land Has Eyes premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was Fiji’s submission to the Academy Awards in 2004. It also won Best Dramatic Feature at the Toronto ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. In 2022 his short film Sina ma Tinirau won ‘Best Animated Short’ at the Berlin Independent Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Film Festival. In 2022 he received a ‘Star of Oceania’ award in Film, Media and the Arts.
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Photo: Dilman Dila
Nsah Mala
Judge, Africa RegionNsah Mala (born Kenneth Nsah) PhD, is an award-winning, multilingual poet, writer, children’s author, literary critic, and interdisciplinary scholar, from Cameroon. Writing in English, French, and Mbessa, he has authored and co-edited numerous poetry volumes, including Bites of Insanity, CONSTIMOCRAZY: Malafricanising Democracy, and Corpses of Unity – Cadavres de l’Unité. His poetry and short fiction appear in many anthologies, magazines, and journals across the globe. An alumnus of the Caine Prize Writing Workshop, Nsah has won the Ministry of Arts and Culture Short Story Prize in Cameroon and le Prix André -Malraux in France, among others. His PhD thesis, from Aarhus University, focused on Comparative Literature and Environmental Humanities and won le Prix de thèses francophones en Prospective (2022) from Fondation 2100 and L’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.
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Photo: Annice Lyn
Saras Manickam
Judge, Asia RegionSaras Manickam’s collection of stories, My Mother Pattu, was published by Penguin Random House (Southeast Asia). In 2024, it was recognised by PEN Malaysia as one of the most significant books written by a Malaysian. The titular story won the regional prize for Asia in the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Contest. Since then, it has been included in Bloomsbury’s ‘The Art and Craft of Asian Stories’, and in ‘The Best of Malaysian Short Fiction in English 2010-2020′. Saras Manickam worked at several jobs while writing her stories. Her various work experiences enabled insights into characters, and life experiences, shaping the authenticity which mark her stories.
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Photo: David Kwaw Mensah
Irenosen Okojie
Judge, Canada and Europe RegionIrenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novel, Butterfly Fish, and short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have been nominated for and won multiple awards. Her journalism has featured in The New York Times, The Guardian and Huffington Post. She is a Contributing Editor for The White Review as well as And Other Stories. She co-presented the BBC’s Turn Up for The Books podcast, alongside Simon Savidge and Bastille frontman Dan Smith. Her work has been optioned for the screen and she has judged various literary prizes including the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Dublin Literary Award. She was a judge for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Formerly the Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021. She is the director and founder of Black to the Future festival. Her new novel Curandera is published by Dialogue Books.
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Photo: Abigail Hadeed
Lisa Allen-Agostini
Judge, Caribbean RegionLisa Allen-Agostini is a writer, editor and stand-up comedian from Trinidad and Tobago. She is the author of Death in the Dry River (1000Volt Press, 2024), Home Home (Papillote Press, 2019, and Delacorte Press, 2020), and The Bread the Devil Knead (Myriad Editions, 2021), which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2022. She is a 2024 Fall Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Lisa is working on a memoir in poetry and a novel set in the world of steelpan, the national instrument of her homeland, Trinidad.
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Photo: Himiona Grace
Apirana Taylor
Judge, Pacific RegionApirana Taylor is from Aotearoa/New Zealand. He is of Pakeha (European) and Maori descent. His Maori tribes are Ngati Porou, Te Whanau Apanui and Ngati Ruanui. Apirana is an internationally published poet, playwright, short storywriter, actor, novelist, musician and storyteller. He has been Writer in Residence at Canterbury and Massey Universities and been invited to attend international festivals. His work is included in many New Zealand and international anthologies. He reads his short stories and poetry on tours of schools, tertiary institutions, universities, marae, galleries and prisons.
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