Literary Prizes are basking in the spotlights at this time, just over a month since the 2023 Guyana Prize took centre stage. The Commonwealth Foundation last Wednesday released the Shortlists in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition for this year, while the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature will announce their Overall Winner for Fiction, Poetry and Non-Fiction during the NGL Literary Festival in Port-of-Spain on Saturday this week-end. They crown one winner from among the three genres.
The Commonwealth Prize has the widest reach globally of all international prizes, covering all five continents as well as Australia and New Zealand. Only writers from Commonwealth member countries are eligible to enter, but they call themselves “the world’s most global literary prize” with some justification. The statistics are stunning. According to the Foundation, the shortlists were reduced from 7,359 entries this year from 53 of the 56 Commonwealth countries around the world. There are five Regions – Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.