Alert! The 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist has been announced – including seven African writers.
The prize – which aims to “brings stories from new and emerging voices, often from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure, to the attention of an international audience” – received nearly 4,000 entries from 47 countries this year.
26 stories by writers from 11 countries make up the shortlist.
The prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction in English, translations also eligible. Five winners from the five different Commonwealth regions are selected, winning £2,500 (about R53,000) each, with the overall winner receiving £5,000 (about R106,000).
The South African writers on the list are established authors Andrew Salomon, Cat Hellisen and Mark Winkler, as well as newcomer Faraaz Mahomed, a clinical psychologist and human rights researcher based in Johannesburg.
This is the second time Hellisen, Salomon and Winkler are facing off in a short story prize – having been placed first, second and third respectively in the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Award. Salomon was also the winner of the 2015 Short.Sharp.Stories Award.
From Nigeria, Lausdeus Chiegboka, Enyeribe Ibegwam and Oyinkan Braithwaite have been shortlisted.
The 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist (African writers in bold):
- Aabirah, Sophia Khan (Pakistan)
- A Visitation, Jane Healey (United Kingdom)
- Black Milk, Tina Makereti (New Zealand)
- Charmed, Jane Downing (Australia)
- Children of the Zocalo, Don McLellan (Canada)
- Confluence, Nova Gordon-Bell (Jamaica)
- Cow and Company, Parashar Kulkani (India)
- Dirty White Strings, Kritika Pandey (India)
- Eel, Stefanie Seddon (United Kingdom)
- Ethelbert and the Free Cheese, Lance Dowrich (Trinidad and Tobago)
- Exorcism, Lausdeus Chiegboka (Nigeria)
- Girdhar’s Mansion, Sumit Ray (India)
- Imbecile, Craig S Whyte (United Kingdom)
- Instant Karma, Vinayak Varma (India)
- Kurram Valley, Munib A Khan (Pakistan)
- Niroporadh Ghum (Innocent Sleep), Sumon Rahman (Bangladesh) (translated by Arunava Sinha)
- Saving Obadiah, Enyeribe Ibegwam (Nigeria)
- Space Invaders, Stuart Snelson (United Kingdom)
- The Driver, Oyinkan Braithwaite (Nigeria)
- The Entomologist’s Dream, Andrew Salomon (South Africa)
- The Pigeon, Faraaz Mahomed (South Africa)
- This Here Land, Miranda Luby (Australia)
- This is How We Burn, Cat Hellisen (South Africa)
- Vestigial, Trent Lewin (Canada)
- When I Came Home, Mark Winkler (South Africa)
- Where Mountains Weep, Bonnie Etherington (New Zealand)
After an initial sift-through by a team of international readers, the judging panel, representing each of the five regions of the Commonwealth – Helon Habila (Africa), Firdous Azim (Asia), Pierre Mejlak (Canada and Europe), Olive Senior (Caribbean), and Patrick Holland (Pacific) – chose the shortlist.
Chair of judges, South African novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, said of the shortlist: “As a novelist accustomed to the luxury of the long form it has been a treat to discover writers who manage to crystallise such different experiences into so few words.
“The stories we have chosen for the shortlist are in turn comic, touching, poetic, mysterious but always fresh and unexpected.”
Excerpts from all 26 stories are available to read on the Commonwealth Writers website.
The Entomologist’s Dream, Andrew Salomon:
Yasmin Ingabire.
Forty two.
Anywhere? You are sure about that, Sergeant Migambi? Very well, I think the appropriate place to start would be at the boxing gym in Kicukiro District. This was almost a year ago.
You know the sound a padded glove makes when it hits against someone’s ribs? It’s a kind of flat smack. I heard that sound all the time in the boxing gym. When I could hear a smack, a pause and then one or two more smacks in quick succession I’d know the boxers were in a clinch. I couldn’t see the ring or much else from where I sat, but I’d been going there long enough to be able to form a picture in my head of what was happening.
The Pigeon, Faraaz Mahomed:
Each morning, for about four months now, I am woken by the same foul, fat pigeon. I am certain that he’s the same one, even though I have no means to prove it. In truth, I have no way to be sure he is a he either. It used to occur to me that maybe he had left something at the window, or inside and was hoping that being here to retrieve it would allow him some release. On most Saturdays, I leave the window open. It makes me feel kind, because I am easing his spirit into the next phase or something of that nature.
This is How We Burn, Cat Hellisen:
CALL DOCTOR LOVEGOOD NOW. HEALER TRADITIONAL MEDICINE.
The ink was blue, fading across the flyer into what might have once been red but was now the pink of discarded Valentine’s cards. A rainbow wave of disquiet and superstition. An A5 job lot – 5000 flyers for seven hundred grimy South African rands. Lindela scanned the rest of the flyer, though it was nothing new. Just a distraction. Like the lulling rattle of the wheels against the track. A measure for passing time.
When I Came Home, Mark Winkler:
When I came home there were strange people in my house, and they gathered tight at the front door to block my entry.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
A young woman raised her index finger and before my eyes the tip of it took the shape of a key.
“Go away,” she said. “You’ve lived in this house for long enough.”The house had been my father’s, and his father’s before. Was she using the plural, I wondered? And if so how could she know these things?
I asked if I might collect some of my belongings.
“No,” the woman said. “You’ve had the benefit of them for long enough.” And she closed the door.
Related stories:
Book details
- Tokoloshe Song by Andrew Salomon
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EAN: 9781415207017
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- Wasted by Mark Winkler
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EAN: 9780795706998
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- Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen
EAN: 9780805099805
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