Women win every regional category of Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Women have won every regional winners of this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Held annunally to award the best unpublished short fiction, the prize selects a winner from five Commonwealth areas who are all then put forward for the main award. This year’s international judging panel, chaired by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, chose five stories from a 23-strong shortlist following over 7,300 submissions. 

Julie Bouchard won in Canada and Europe for What Burns, translated by Arielle Aaronson, a story inspired by the wildfires in Canada 2023.

Mauritian writer Reena Ushan Rungoo won the Africa category with Dite, an exploration of a Mauritian woman’s love of tea and her ties to the drink’s colonial history. Rungoo is the first Mauritian writer to win the African regional prize. 

Aishwarya Rai by Indian author Sanjana Thakur won in the Asia cateogry. The story, which takes its name from the eponymous Bollywood actress, follows Avni who "tries out different mothers from the shelter" in Mumbai. 

In the Caribbean, Trinidadian and Tobagan Portia Subran took the prize for The Devil’s Son. Set in 1950s Chaguanas, Trinidad, and told in Trinandian dialect, the short story details the dark past of a retired oil field worker when electricity comes to the village.

Pip Robertson, a resident of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand, won the Pacific category with A River Then the Road. In Robertson’s story a 12-year-old girl who is abducted by her troubled father. 

Nansubuga Makumbi commented: "The short story form has neither the luxury of time nor the comfort of space. It is an impatient form; it does not dance around. The punch of a good short story leaves you breathless. As the judging panel, we enjoyed, sorrowed, celebrated and eventually agreed that these stories came up on top of the different regions."

The five regional winners’ stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta before the winner is announced in an online ceremony on 26th June 2024.