/ 14th April 2021
This short film features the twenty-five shortlisted authors. Read about the individual writers and their stories below.
Congratulations to the New Zealander shortlisted: Tim Saunders for his story CARVED.
‘Ogbuefi’, Vincent Anioke (Nigeria)
‘Hunger’, Andre Bagoo (Trinidad and Tobago)
‘Tourism is Our Business’, Heather Barker (Barbados)
‘I Cleaned The—’, Kanya D’Almeida (Sri Lanka)
‘It Ends with a Kiss’, Riddhi Dastidar (India)
‘some words, ending in a sentence’, phill doran (UK)
‘Turnstones’, Carol Farrelly (UK)
‘Downpour’, SJ Finn (Australia)
‘Fertile Soil’, Katerina Gibson (Australia)
‘An Analysis of a Fragile Affair’, Ola W. Halim (Nigeria)
‘English at the End of Time’, Rashad Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
‘The Current Climate’, Aravind Jayan (India)
‘Submission’, Nur Khan (Pakistan)
‘The Woman; or Euryale’, A.N. King (Australia)
‘Weeds’, Ling Low (Malaysia)
‘Starry Night’, Cara Marks (Canada)
‘Rabbit’, Samantha Lane Murphy (Australia)
‘Granddaughter of the Octopus’, Rémy Ngamije (Namibia)
‘Carved’, Tim Saunders (New Zealand)
‘Class Struggle’, Ian Stewart (Canada)
‘Tetra Hydro Cannabinol’, Moso Sematlane (Lesotho)
‘Genuine Human Hair’, Sharma Taylor (Jamaica)
‘A for Abortion’, Franklyn Usouwa (Nigeria)
‘Mass Effect ‘, Joshua Wales (Canada)
‘The Disappearance of Mumma Del’, Roland Watson-Grant (Jamaica)
In its tenth year, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. This year’s shortlist was chosen from a record 6423 entries from 50 Commonwealth countries, and includes, for the first time, stories from Lesotho and Namibia.
Chair of the Judges, South African novelist Zoë Wicomb, said:
‘Announcements about the death of the short story may be legion, but the 2021 shortlist loudly asserts that the form is in fine fettle. It also shows that writers continue to push at the very parameters of the short story. Many have tackled difficult subjects and found fresh means of representing these with courage and sensitivity. In this tenth year of the Prize we see from the submissions not only the flexibility of the form but also novel use of local non-standard Englishes as well as inventive inscription of native languages in standard English texts.
The judging panel was well exercised in deliberating on a range of stories from speculative fictions that address environmental and political crises to the hyper-real and the supernatural, stories that include concerns with sexual identity, gender relations, animal rights, neo-colonialism, racial exploitation and, of course, the perennial themes of love and death. The great number of excellent submissions and the equivocal nature of aesthetic taste made for protracted discussions. It has been a privilege to participate in vigorous argument and thoughtful horse-trading as members of the panel generously conceded and negotiated priorities.’
‘Ogbuefi’, Vincent Anioke (Nigeria)
A boy contends with proving that he is a man to his people. To do so, he must become an Ogbuefi.
Vincent Anioke was born and raised in Nigeria, studied Computer Science at MIT in the United States, and now lives in Canada. By day, he is a software engineer. By night, he voraciously reads and writes short stories. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals such as Carve, Split Lip Magazine, Pithead Chapel, and Callaloo, among others. He is currently working on his debut anthology.
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Listen to Vincent talk about his submission
‘Hunger’, Andre Bagoo (Trinidad and Tobago)
Three months after a breakup, a lonely chef finds the perfect way to reignite his appetite for life: a tall, handsome, Venezuelan man. But what this new stranger has to offer might be too much to swallow.
‘Three months after the breakup, you meet Paquito. Well, at first his name isn’t Paquito. It’s RightNow95.
You’d spent the day in bed crying, listening to Taylor Swift’s folklore album like it was going out of style. You’d tried everything to regain your bearings after the breakup. You’d resumed counselling…’
Andre Bagoo is a Trinidadian writer and poet, the author of an essay collection on literature and art, The Undiscovered Country, as well as several volumes of poetry. In 2020, he was shortlisted for The Ernest Hemingway Foundation’s annual short fiction prize and longlisted for the Bristol Prize.
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Listen to Andre talk about his submission
‘Tourism is Our Business’, Heather Barker (Barbados)
A middle-aged Barbadian teacher hosts long-stay guests in her coastal oasis as part of a national welcome scheme launched after a pandemic. When she meets a nightmare guest, she goes to extreme lengths to deal with him
‘Landed at the airport with bags of Tesco’s Finest all-butter cherry scones, banana butters from Body Shop, and a warm, tight embrace. I liked her immediately.
“Saved for ages to come there,” she’d typed months earlier in the messaging app on the website. “It’ll be worth every penny 🙂 🙂 ”’
Born in the UK, Heather Barker writes fiction about girls and women in the Caribbean and the African Diaspora while exploring the legacies of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Her short story, African Burial Ground, was shortlisted for the 2016 Small Axe Literary Competition while her collection manuscript, The Plundering, was the top entry in the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment (2017). Heather was shortlisted for the 2019 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize. She runs a communications consultancy in Barbados.
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Listen to Heather talk about her submission
‘I Cleaned The—’, Kanya D’Almeida (Sri Lanka)
‘I Cleaned The—’ is a story about the dirty work: domestic labour, abandonment, romantic encounters behind bathroom doors, and human waste, which is to say—the things we leave behind.
‘TB Rita loves the story. I don’t know why. It doesn’t have a happy ending.
She doesn’t actually have tuberculosis. The TB stands for tobacco; she says she became addicted to the stuff while wrapping beedis for a living when she was thirteen years old, and now her lungs are like the kitchen sponge, full of holes and black fungus.’
Kanya D’Almeida is a Sri Lankan writer. Her fiction has appeared on Jaggery and The Bangalore Review. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She’s working on a book of short stories about mad women. Kanya is the host of ‘The Darkest Light’, a podcast exploring birth and motherhood in Sri Lanka.
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Listen to Kanya talk about her submission
‘It Ends with a Kiss’, Riddhi Dastidar (India)
A young girl struggles to reconcile loss and the promise of first love in a new claustrophobic world, where her mother is a present-absence, and she must navigate queerness and the non-linearity of time.
Riddhi Dastidar is a neuroqueer journalist and researcher in Delhi. They work on disability justice, public health, climate and culture. They hold an M.A in Gender Studies from Ambedkar University Delhi. In 2020 they won the TFA Award for Creative Writing for their poetry. Riddhi is working on their first book — a work of climate fiction with queer and speculative elements. Their work has appeared in Foreign Policy Magazine, The Fuller Project, Himal Southasian, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Rattle Magazine, IndiaSpend, and elsewhere.
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Listen to Riddhi talk about their submission
‘some words, ending in a sentence’, phill doran (UK)
The story relates the unresolved thoughts and memories of a man, traumatized as a small child by a family tragedy.
‘Hung: It would be wrong to say it was her favourite expression. Her favourite expression, my Mam, was “Hell’s Bells!”, which was short for “Hell’s bells and buckets of blood”. That was her idea of swearing. A jingle: just enough to keep a real swear word at bay.
When the real ones came, they were Dar’s, and they were like my brother, Davie, you know – thick, short, and fast.’
phill doran was born in Liverpool, England, but has lived the past 40 years in South Africa, where he runs a training business. Married with three children, he has written for personal pleasure, with varying degrees of success (and of pleasure) for many years.
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Listen to phill talk about his submission
‘Turnstones’, Carol Farrelly (UK)
A young woman at a prestigious university battles with feelings she doesn’t belong when, one night, a storm blows in some unusual trespassers…
Carol Farrelly is a fiction writer from Glasgow, Scotland. Her short stories have been widely published and broadcast on radio. Last year, she was shortlisted for The Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Award. She is a previous Jerwood/Arvon mentee and a Scottish Booktrust New Writer. She lived for one glorious year in Italy. She is currently working on a novel and a short story collection.
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Listen to Carol talk about her submission
‘Downpour’, SJ Finn (Australia)
Midway through a deluge, Reg and Cynthia open their front door to a stranger who will change their lives forever. Or perhaps their lives had already been changing for quite some time and this visitor, who they welcome inside, is just the lynchpin they needed to see it.
SJ Finn, who goes by the name Finn, is an Australian writer. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in a wide range of Australian literary magazines and newspapers over the last decade including Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Island, Rabbit, Cordite, and in both The Australian and The Age newspapers. Her latest novel is Down to the River.
She can be found at: sjfinn.com
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Listen to Finn talk about her submission
‘Fertile Soil’, Katerina Gibson (Australia)
Something is happening in the city a woman lives in, she is sure, something is not right—almost as if she’s no longer welcome.
Katerina Gibson is a writer living in Melbourne. Their short stories have won the VU Short Story Prize, been longlisted for the Peter Carey, and otherwise been published in Overland, The Lifted Brow, and Kill Your Darlings. Most recently, they have had a story anthologised in New Australian Fiction 2020. They are currently at work on their first collection ‘Women I Know’.
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Listen to Katerina talk about their submission
‘An Analysis of a Fragile Affair’, Ola W. Halim (Nigeria)
A young man is everything his lover resents, but he is determined to hide some parts of him as long as his lover accepts him. How long can that be? That’s the question.
‘In the very beginning, the stage was empty. Only lights flickered and curtains swirled. Then a boy appeared. He was closely followed by a man.
And it happened that this boy and this man were in an affair, or something madly close to that.’
Ola W. Halim writes fiction and poetry and also teaches English Language and Literature in Edo State, Nigeria. He seeks to tell stories not frequently told, themes rarely explored. As a teacher, he has been shortlisted for the TFCN Teacher’s Prize for Literature 2019. He edits prose for ARTmosterrific, a literary platform publishing young African writers, especially undergraduates. Halim is interested in research on sexuality, albinism, inclusive education, and feminism.
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Listen to Ola talk about his submission
‘English at the End of Time’, Rashad Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago)
Set in a rural Trinidadian village amid the apocalyptic tidings of WW2, an ambitious young woman secretly learns to read and write.
Rashad Hosein is a Trinidad-born writer, academic and avid cook. He was longlisted for the 2021 Galley Beggar Press Prize, was a finalist for the 2020 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Caribbean Writers and was also shortlisted for the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Currently, he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
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Listen to Rashad talk about his submission
‘The Current Climate’, Aravind Jayan (India)
A newly-appointed bank manager tussles with an idol that sits in the bank foyer.
Aravind Jayan is a writer based in Kerala. His work has been published in Out of Print, The Bombay Literary Magazine and Helter Skelter among others. He is the 2017 Toto Funds the Arts winner for Fiction in English.
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Listen to Aravind talk about his submission
‘Submission’, Nur Khan (Pakistan)
A boy in boarding school has feelings for a senior and this physical intimacy, and the feelings that come from it, fly in the face of the boy’s faith. These competing devotions take a toll on this boy’s life and psyche.
Nur Kahn holds a degree in psychology from Columbia University and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Their work has been a finalist for the Dastaan Award and the Salam Award and they are currently working on their first novel.
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Listen to Nur Khan talk about his submission
‘The Woman; or Euryale’, A.N. King (Australia)
A girl comes to grips with her village’s ancient and terrible rites for attaining womanhood.
A.N. King is a Thai-Australian writer and international lawyer. She graduated with first class honours in law from the University of Cambridge and on the Dean’s List at Georgetown University Law Center. She was the youth winner of the Somerset National Novella Writing Competition and the Boroondara Literary Award. She currently resides in Geneva, where she works as a dispute settlement lawyer in the WTO Secretariat.
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Listen to A.N. King talk about her submission
‘Weeds’, Ling Low (Malaysia)
When a national lockdown forces him to stay indoors, a retired, wealthy old man passes the time by watching the gardeners who work outside. He grows increasingly envious of their time in the sun.
‘Wee Boon Ho was no longer expecting any phone calls.
The first few days of lockdown, they had all called. One by one, they lit up his phone with a ringtone that he didn’t like, but couldn’t be bothered to change. There were their faces – boy, girl, boy – frowning with concerns, asking him questions.’
Ling Low is a writer, journalist and filmmaker whose short stories have appeared in various anthologies of fiction. She has written on arts and culture for the Guardian, South China Morning Post and Esquire Malaysia, among other publications. Her short films have screened at international festivals and her comedy sketches have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She was a runner-up for Malaysia’s DK Dutt Memorial Award for Literary Excellence in 2016.
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Listen to Ling talk about her submission
‘Starry Night’, Cara Marks (Canada)
An intimate portrayal of a teenage girl’s conflicting exploration of desire and loss through a budding first love, her father’s illness, and her mother’s grief.
Cara Marks is a writer from Vancouver Island, Canada. She writes intimate, darkly comic stories that have been long-listed for the 2020 Journey Prize, the 2019 CVC Short Fiction Competition, the 2016 Mogford Food and Drink Writing Prize, and others. As part of her PhD on food, empathy, and literature, she is writing her first novel, Milkflower, which was short-listed for the 2020 Grindstone Novel Prize.
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Listen to Cara talk about her submission
‘Rabbit’, Samantha Lane Murphy (Australia)
Promise learns to kill and skin a rabbit, and everything else a woman needs to know.
Samantha Lane Murphy is an Australian-born New Zealand-based writer, with a love for both literature, science fiction, and the spaces in which they meet. She has been published in Monsters in the Garden: An Anthology of Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy, and literary New Zealand journals such as Headland and Turbine. She has recently graduated from the International Institute of Modern Letters of Victoria University of Wellington, with a Masters of Arts degree in creative writing.
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Listen to Samantha talk about her submission
‘Granddaughter of the Octopus’, Rémy Ngamije (Namibia)
Recounting a family history of love, violence, and dispossession, Granddaughter of the Octopus is an experimental short story filled with humour, voice, and quiet, earnest truths.
Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the founder, chairperson, and artministrator of Doek, an independent arts organisation in Namibia supporting the literary arts. He is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia’s first and only literary magazine.
His debut novel The Eternal Audience of One is forthcoming from Scout Press (S&S). His work has appeared in The Johannesburg Review of Books, Brainwavez, American Chordata, Azure, Sultan’s Seal, Columbia Journal, Lolwe, and many other places. He was shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020. He was also longlisted for the 2020 and 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prizes. In 2019 he was shortlisted for Best Original Fiction by Stack Magazines.
More of his writing can be read on his website: remythequill.com
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Listen to Rémy talk about his submission
‘Carved’, Tim Saunders (New Zealand)
A girl is changed forever and blames the only thing that could have saved her from the empty darkness that eventually consumes her.
Tim Saunders farms sheep and beef near Palmerston North in New Zealand. He has had poetry and short stories published in Turbine|Kapohau, takahē, Landfall, Poetry NZ Yearbook and Flash Frontier. He won the 2018 Mindfood Magazine Short Story Competition, and placed third in the 2019 and 2020 New Zealand National Flash Fiction Day Awards. His book, This Farming Life, was published by Allen & Unwin in August, 2020.
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Listen to Tim talk about his submission
‘Class Struggle’, Ian Stewart (Canada)
It starts with a fantasy and ends with a nightmare…
Ian Stewart is a writer and artist in Montreal. He co-founded the Institute for the Calibration of Reality (realitycalibration.com) with artist Indigo Esmonde. He has a Masters in Mathematics from McGill (Montreal) and a PhD in music from City University (London). His sonic artwork has been presented in concerts and galleries worldwide. His story ‘Comparative Literature’ was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize.
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Listen to Ian talk about his submission
‘Tetra Hydra Cannabinol‘, Moso Sematlane (Lesotho)
In a small village in Lesotho, a young boy grapples with the arrival of a medical marijuana company.
Moso Sematlane is a writer and filmmaker based between Maseru, Lesotho, and Johannesburg, South Africa. He has been published in Nat Brut and is an Assistant Editor at Lolwe Magazine.
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Listen to Moso talk about his submission
‘Genuine Human Hair’, Sharma Taylor (Jamaica)
Two women on different sides of the world grapple with what it means to be beautiful as expressed through their hair. The story explores the hidden connection between them and how their lives are weaved together as they discover their strength.
Sharma Taylor is a Jamaican writer and lawyer living in Barbados. She has been the recipient of the 2020 Wasafiri Queen Mary New Writing Prize, the 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award and the 2019 Bocas Lit Fest’s Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize. She was previously shortlisted for the CSSP in 2018 and 2020. Her debut novel What A Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You is scheduled to be published by Virago (part of Little Brown) in the UK in summer 2022.
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Listen to Sharma talk about her submission
‘A for Abortion’, Franklyn Usouwa (Nigeria)
A pregnant teenager is forced to have an abortion by the abuser she believes she is in love with.
‘I walk into the tiny living room as Nne is asking Madu where his woman is. Seeing me, her facial expression morphs instantly from professional indifference to righteous anger.
“This is no woman,” she asserts.
This sparks a brief debate between them over my age.’
Franklyn Usouwa is a Nigerian of the Igbo ethnic group who was born and raised in Lagos. He is presently studying for an undergraduate degree in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Lagos. He is greatly interested in storytelling in all its possible forms but has a particularly soft spot for short stories. His short stories have been published in The Kalahari Review and Writer’s Space Africa.
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Listen to Franklyn talk about his submission
‘Mass Effect ‘, Joshua Wales (Canada)
As a terminal illness changes the shape of their relationship, Eddie and Ivan take a drive.
Joshua Wales is a Toronto-based palliative care physician and writer, with recent work in Contemporary Verse 2, Plenitudes, Grain, The New Quarterly, the Globe and Mail, the New England Journal of Medicine, and on the CBC. He won the 2020 Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award, and his work has been short-listed for PRISM international’s Jacob Zilber Short Fiction Prize, and CV2’s Young Buck Poetry Prize. He is an MFA student at University of British Columbia.
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Listen to Joshua talk about his submission
‘The Disappearance of Mumma Del’, Roland Watson-Grant (Jamaica)
A matriarch’s funeral gets derailed just before her body goes missing, causing panic in a rural Jamaican district that is also in danger of vanishing from the map.
Roland Watson-Grant is a Jamaican novelist, screenwriter and travel writer. His first novel Sketcher (2013) was published by Alma Books (UK) and has been translated into Turkish and Spanish. Roland was shortlisted for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He is a 2018 recipient of a Musgrave Award for Literature in his home country and his non-fiction work has been archived by the Smithsonian Libraries.
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Listen to Roland talk about his submission
If you would like to enter the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, it is likely to open for submissions on 1 September and close for submissions on 1 November 2021. Please sign up to our newsletter to receive further details when available.
