Canadian writers Chanel Sutherland and Damhnait Monaghan shortlisted for 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize annually recognizes the best piece of unpublished short fiction from one of the Commonwealth's 56 member states. The winner is chosen from the five winners of the annual regional competitions in the categories of Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean and Pacific.
As Canadians, Sutherland and Monaghan are shortlisted in the Canada and Europe regional category.
Sutherland is recognized for her story Descend, about a sinking ship of enslaved Africans with powerful stories to tell.
Sutherland, who is from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. She won the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize and the CBC Nonfiction Prize in 2021. Her debut short story collection, Layaway Child, will be released in spring 2026 and will include the story that won the CBC Short Story Prize. She lives in Montreal.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the CBC Poetry Prize is open now until June 1. The winner receives $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and their work will be published on CBC Books. You can learn more here.
Monaghan is shortlisted for her story Nualu Nu, about a 1970s schoolgirl who immigrated to Canada from Ireland with her widowed mother.
Monaghan is a Canadian writer who spent 25 years living in England and grew up in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador. She is the author of New Girl in the Little Cove, which won the 2022 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Award for romance. A former teacher and lawyer, her writing has been published in many different publications.
The complete list of shortlisted authors for all five regions is available here.
They were chosen from 7,920 entries by judges Vilsoni Hereniko, chair, Nsah Mala, Saras Manickam, Anita Sethi, Lisa Allen-Agostini and Apirana Taylor and are published in the online magazine adda.
The regional winners will be announced on May 14 and the overall winner will be revealed June 25.
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