A Sri Lankan has become the first overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It is the short story ‘I Cleaned the -’ by Kanya de Almeida.
Kanya de Almeida, the first Sri Lankan to win the overall prize in the competition, is also the second Sri Lankan to win this prize.
She has won this victory over a total of 6423 short story productions from 50 Commonwealth countries.
Her short story ‘I Cleaned the -’ is about ‘dirty work’: domestic labour, abandonment, romantic encounters behind bathroom doors, and human waste.
The Commonwealth Foundation announced the victory of Kanya de Almeida at an online awards ceremony on June 30.
It also featured stories by Zambian author Mubanga Kalimamukwento, Sri Lankan actress Ranmali Mirchandani, British actress Lindsay Marshall, Jamaican author Key Miller and Australian actress Francesca Savi.
The 2021 regional winners are African winner Remy Nagamije (Namibia), Asian champion Kanya de Almeida (Sri Lanka), Canada and European champion Carol Ferrell (UK), Caribbean champion Gibson (Australia). Kanya won the overall title, beating these winners as well.
The winners of the online festival were announced by British-Jamaican actress Donna Crowll, who named the winner as Kanya de Almeida. Kanya is from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
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. The other panellists are Nigerian writer A. Igoni Barrett; Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam; British poet and fiction writer Keith Jarrett; Jamaican environmental activist, award-winning writer and 2012 Caribbean regional winner Diana McCaulay; and award-winning author and 2016 Pacific regional winner Tina Makereti from New Zealand.
Commenting on this, Kanya de Almeida says: “Winning the Commonwealth Short Story prize during this moment of global upheaval feels like a tremendous honour and an equally tremendous responsibility. It makes me question what it means to be a writer in these times, times when the human imagination might offer us our best shot at survival. I’ve long felt that fiction is the last ‘free’ place on earth in which to fully envision (and execute!) radical alternatives to the often dismal systems that govern us. To have won the prize for a story about two destitute, aging women in Sri Lanka digging through the debris of their lives in search of a little dignity is more than a blessing—it’s a firm order from the universe to keep inventing ways for the powerless to gather together, giggle together, and win.”
Her short story is given below.