By Ogova Ondego
Published August 26, 2016
The Commonwealth Writers‘ annual short story prize competition for 2017 opens on September 1, 2016.
Eligible for submission to the £17500-rich literary prize are unpublished short fiction between 2000 and 5000 words.
Short stories translated into English as well as those in Bengali, Portuguese and Kiswahili are accepted.
Stories, Commonwealth Writers say, must be submitted via its online entry form by November 1, 2016 when the two-month story submission call closes.
The overall winner Commonwealth Short Story Prize receives £5000 while the regional winners receive £2500.
The Commonwealth is divided into five regions: Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean, and Pacific.
Parashar Kulkarni of India was overall winner Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2016. He received the award Marlon James, during the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica.
RELATED:Commonwealth Crowns Short Story Writer, BBC Shortlists Playwrights
Meanwhile, did you know that 25 of the 53 Commonwealth countries are islands?
Alright.
Commonwealth Writers invites writers from the 25 island countries of the Commonwealth to submit stories for its Small Island Anthology by October 5, 2016.
Saying the anthology will bring together a wide range of writing–from Dominica in the Caribbean to Malta in the Mediterranean to Tuvalu in the Pacific–Commonwealth Writers invites writers “from one of the islands in the Commonwealth . . . to submit to the anthology.”
RELATED:5th Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlists
“It is possible to dream, write and speak from the islands,” says Mary Rokonadravu, Winner of the 2015 Short Story Prize for the Pacific region.”I live and write in a fragile democracy. A small island country beset by issues of climate change and globalisation. It is not an easy space to inhabit. For too long, others have told our stories and that has always been painful to witness.”
