(Trinidad Express) The Commonwealth Short Story judging panel on Friday showed their interest in local author Sharon Millar’s short story, The Whale House, by naming her co-winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
The announcement was made on Friday at the annual Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, United Kingdom.
Lisa O’Donnell, UK, won the overall 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize with her book, The Death of Bees, published by Random House. Millar and fellow winner Eliza Robertson of Canada were presented with the prize by British author John le Carré.
The winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize receives £10,000 ($98,000) while the prize for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is £5,000 ($49,000).
In 1997, Trinidad and Tobago novelist Earl Lovelace won the overall book prize with Salt. Fellow Trinidadian Barbara Jenkins has also been a previous winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
It has so far been an outstanding year for Millar.
She was named the 2013 Caribbean Region winner of the Commonwealth and her short story, The Whale House, was published earlier this week in Granta online.
Millar was recently short-listed for the 2013 Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, sponsored by the Hollick Family Charitable Trust and Arvon, in association with the Bocas Lit Fest.
She was also a New Talent Showcase author at the 2012 NGC Bocas Lit Fest.
Millar was short-listed for the regional prize last year but the title was won by Jamaican author Diana McCaulay for work, The Dolphin Catcher.
The Commonwealth Short Story judging panel was chaired by BBC journalist Razia Iqbal and included literary agent Elise Dillsworth, a fiction judge for the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize, and writer Oonya Kempadoo, a 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest author.
