The Commonwealth Foundation is scheduled to announce the overall winner of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize on Tuesday June 27. This will be done in an on-line ceremony starting at 12.00 pm UCT.
This is one of the largest, most established international literary prizes, but it is exclusive to writers from the Commonwealth in countries distributed across all five continents of the world. For the purpose of covering these nations, there are five geographical regions: Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Writers compete within their Regions and each Region reduces the competitors to a Regional Shortlist and then choose a Regional Winner. The five Regional Winners then compete for the Overall Prize.
The competing 2023 Regional Winners are Hana Gammon (Africa), Agnes Chew (Asia), Rue Baldry (Canada and Europe), Kwame McPherson (Caribbean) and Himali McInnes (Pacific). They triumphed over a shortlist of 28 out of thousands of entries across the regions.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize describes itself as “a cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation”. This Foundation is a long-standing major institution in London, England, responsible for literary prizes since the 1970s, but initiating changes in these prizes throughout the decades. They have been responsible for world leading competitions including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. This was changed to the Commonwealth Writers Prize around 1987 when it became a prize for Fiction – both novels and full-length collections of short stories. The most recent development was when the fiction prize ceased and the Short Story Prize was introduced.
There have also been shifts in the distribution of regions. For example, for a long time one of the regions was Canada and the Caribbean taken together. Canada has been removed from that and is now grouped with Europe, while the Caribbean is a region on its own. There have been many overall winners from the Caribbean, including David Dabydeen, Olive Senior, Pauline Melville, Earl Lovelace and Austin Clarke. One of the intentions behind the changes has to do with the developmental factor in the aims and purposes of the Commonwealth literary prize. It aims not just to reward the best, but to develop the body of writing. This is not an interest among the other large international literary prizes, which do not have this developmental objective. This is one of the interests of the Guyana Prize for Literature, which, like the Commonwealth Prize, is rare among the major prizes in this regard.
In one of its statements the Commonwealth Foundation has explained that it had noted the important ways in which writing from the Commonwealth had been taking shape and saw its potential possibilities in world literature. The Prize therefore sought ways to bring this writing more to the world’s attention and expose the writers to greater international attention. Commonwealth writing is known to have been at the core of the development of post-colonial literature which is now a leading and influential body of writing in the world.
The short story competition takes the Foundation deeper into this developmental interest because it involves a wider range of fiction writers than was the case previously when the main established novelists were the main competitors. Ever since the short story prize became the focus, several new and unknown writers have been discovered. The opportunity was given for new, younger and developing writers to participate and to win. Many of these have not yet written a novel, and might even not have progressed beyond the production of a few short stories. So they are able to get recognition on the world stage as an emerging or as an un-established writer. At the same time they are seen to have considerable talent, but might not previously have had the opportunity to compete with the major established novelists.
It was for the same reason that the Commonwealth Writers Prize had a Best First Book category. So, even then, the Foundation was looking out for new, emerging talents. It has been noted that the Guyana Prize compares with the Commonwealth where this is concerned, and goes even deeper in these developmental concerns. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize has released critical information about the winning regional stories. It provides a picture of the overriding qualities of the works and preoccupations of the writers. “The winning stories address a rich diversity of themes: from exploitation to subversive acts of rebellion, cultural displacement, the balance of life and death, the world of adults as viewed by children, and the pull of family ties across the globe and through the generations”.They go on to say“The winning writers tackle painful themes unflinchingly and show how love and human warmth can thrive in the most unlikely of places. The judging panel remarked on the strong sense of place in all the stories – with locations featuring a building site in Britain, a German oncology clinic ‘oceans away’ from the narrator’s homeland, and a war-torn town in Sri Lanka”.These preoccupations are further highlighted in the citations provided by the judges, giving an idea of what they found “to be so gripping” in the winning stories. “The Undertaker’s Apprentice”Hana Gammon (Africa Region)This is a story of “a group of children and their interactions with their small town’s sombre but kind mortician. As they grow up, they are forced to question issues of growth, decay and exchange between different states of being”. Here is the citation from Remy Ngamije, Judge, Africa Region.“A carefully observed patiently narrated and exquisitely written story about youth and the ways in which we come to adulthood through loss and death”“Oceans Away from My Homeland”Agnes Chew (Asia)A woman’s struggle to pursue the perceived changes in her life – both of and beyond her own making. This is the citation by Ameena Hussein, Judge, Asia Region.“In the end it is a very human story that tackles migration, language, displacement, fear and hope and, most importantly of all, love. This was a gem of a story for me.”“Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things”Rue Baldry (Canada and Europe)This story is of a young black plasterer, drawn to committing petty acts of revenge against his employer’s neglected possessions, risks becoming more diminished than those status symbols. The citation by Katrina Best, Judge, Canada and Europe Region, says:“A genuinely surprising and unexpectedly moving story that explores such weighty – and relevant – topics as racism, classism and inequality in modern-day Britain.”“Ocoee”Kwame McPherson (The Caribbean)This story is an interweaving of African American reality and history, and Caribbean folklore. In the citation by McDonald Dixon, Judge, Caribbean Region, it is described thus:“A simple tale retold in a surreal atmosphere of creative uneasiness. Images awake in the subconscious and, without pointing fingers, remind of man’s inhumanity to man.”“Kilinochchi”Himali McInnes (The Pacific)The story is set during a particularly bloody time in Sri Lanka’s civil war, the protagonist, an up-country Tamil tea-picker who comes from a long line of indentured labourers goes in search for her son. This is the citation by Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh, Judge, Pacific Region. “An unforgettable story that explores family loyalty, gender, class and social inequality, war, life in diaspora, and our fundamental need to belong.”
