Kanya D’Almeida has been declared the overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, for a "captivating" tale set in a Sri Lankan "sanctuary for the forsaken".
D’Almeida, from Colombo, Sri Lanka, was named the winner by actress Dona Croll in an online ceremony on 30th June. D’Almeida, who won for her story "I Cleaned The—", is the first Sri Lankan to win the overall prize and the second to win for the Asia region.
The prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction. Regional winners receive £2,500 with £5,000 for the overall winner.
"I Cleaned The—", is a story about "dirty work"—domestic labour, abandonment, romantic encounters behind bathroom doors and human waste. The Asia judge, Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam, described it as "a life-affirming story of love among the rambutan and clove trees of Sri Lanka—love for a baby not one’s own, love for a high-spirited elderly woman. Love found not among the stars but in human excrement. Literally. And all the more glorious for it."
The 2021 prize was judged by an international panel of writers, each representing one of the five regions of the Commonwealth, and chaired by South African writer Zoë Wicomb. Alongside Islam, the other panelists were Nigerian writer A Igoni Barrett, British poet and fiction writer Keith Jarrett, Jamaican environmental activist, writer and 2012 Caribbean regional winner Diana McCaulay, and author and 2016 Pacific regional winner Tina Makereti from New Zealand.
Source: www.thebookseller.com
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