Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025 Regional Winners Announced
Judges hail stories that 'cause us to feel that our lives have been enriched'
A Bangladeshi writer has won the Asia regional prize for the first time
The stories feature compelling characters including a new mother protecting her child from a bloodthirsty creature, a football-obsessed boy who befriends a woman against his mother's wishes, and a young woman who is literally falling apart.
The Commonwealth Foundation has announced five regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the world's most global literary prize. This year's prize attracted the highest-ever number of entrants, 10 per cent more than in 2024. The regional winners are Joshua Lubwama from Uganda (Africa region), Faria Basher from Bangladesh (Asia region), Chanel Sutherland from Canada/Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Canada and Europe Region), Subraj Singh from Guyana (Caribbean region), and Kathleen Ridgwell from Australia (Pacific region). They will now go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on Wednesday 25 June 2025.
Taking the reader from a surf shack in Australia to a village in Guyana on the eve of independence, the stories tackle powerful themes head-on. We read of a clash between generations as a boy's illiterate mother fears and resents the unconventional newcomer; the lost memories of enslaved Africans for whom storytelling is their final act of defiance; the legacy of colonialism reflected in a demon that threatens to prey on a young baby; the pressures on young women in their twenties to get married and rear children—or face dire consequences; and how two young people form an unlikely friendship in the face of racism and family pressure.
Chair of the Judges, Dr Vilsoni Hereniko, said, 'These stories illuminate many aspects of human nature and demonstrate true mastery of the short story form. Each tale shows that geography matters in storytelling. They are works of fiction that are inseparable from the local culture and history from which they have sprung. They have colour and emotional resonance—and they moved me deeply. Congratulations to the regional winners and judges!'
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth 56 member countries. It is the most accessible and international of all writing competitions: in addition to English, entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish.
The winning stories are:
Africa: 'Mothers Not Appearing in Search' by Joshua Lubwama (Uganda)
Asia: 'An Eye and a Leg' by Faria Basher (Bangladesh)
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The Church of St Mary and All Saints in Derbyshire is a typical example of medieval English ecclesiastical architecture — but for its curiously twisted spire. Legend has it that Satan himself was soaring over Chesterfield, and feeling tired, landed upon the spire to rest his hairy wings. Perched there, he recoiled in horror upon seeing a virgin bride emerging from the church below. In his shock and incredibility, Old Nick twisted the spire before vanishing skyward, unable to abide such unexpected purity in the East Midlands. A postcard displaying a photograph of this spire, emblazoned with the words "I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar", was my first introduction to Holly Redford Jones, a Manchester-based musician and comedian. Originally from Chesterfield, Holly has decamped to Edinburgh for the month in order to perform a nightly "love letter to Sapphic institutions of a bygone era" — her contribution to this year's Fringe Festival. 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But it was the pandemic, coupled with a bout of creative frustration and an encounter with a certain Netflix special, that nudged her towards comedy: "Watching Hannah Gadsby's Nanette was a turning point," she told me. "It was the first time I felt really represented — it was so honest; so much of it resonated with me." Fittingly, the show's title came from a pub gig: Holly had been performing covers in the same pub — the Bottle & Thyme in Chesterfield — for several years, when late one night, spurred on by a "let's see what happens" attitude, she decided to play Jonathan Richman's cult classic. The reaction surprised her. "Much to my delight, people loved it. I found this inspiring in my hometown as it's not a particularly progressive place. Having people liking the song and requesting it felt very powerful, having grown up there and not being able to be openly LGBT." And so, I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar became not just a staple in her setlist, but a point of reflection: why did this unapologetic celebration of queer spaces resonate so deeply, even in Chesterfield? The Bongo Club, where Holly's show is staged under the auspices of the Underbelly entertainment company, is no lesbian institution. But, having frequented its sticky floors and smoky corners countless times during my undergraduate exchange in Edinburgh, I can vouch for its queer potential. It's no stretch to imagine it transformed, albeit briefly, into a lesbian bar of Holly's own making. Holly is clear-eyed about the tensions that come with nostalgia, noting that cherished queer spaces have often been exclusionary. "The hardest thing for me to write," she says, "was critiquing lesbian bars in the past as exclusionary spaces ... as a white performer, I might have gotten in but loads of people wouldn't." 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Holly riffs on the irony of Dusty having had to croon numerous love songs to fictional men, and wonders aloud how many "difficult women" throughout history (think Virginia Woolf or Patricia Highsmith) were simply closeted and furious: "I wonder how much this was due to having to hide an integral part of themselves, having to constantly check themselves." These reflections are never delivered as lectures, however, but are peppered between songs and comedic episodes. I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar is also a deeply personal show, replete with anecdotes from Holly's life in Chesterfield, with its infamous "Big Tesco" and the council's hilarious, inscrutable embrace of the Crooked Spire motif — slapped indiscriminately on wheelie bins, vape shops and football stadiums. The twisted spire appears throughout the show as a symbol of both local identity and accidental queerness. 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But this isn't musical comedy a la Tim Minchin or the Flight of the Conchords. The songs chosen — and Holly's rich, unshowy voice — complement the humour and personal reflections without veering into outright parody or pastiche. Gerry Rafferty's Right Down the Line is Holly's favourite to perform: gentle, romantic, reimagined as a woman singing to a woman. A highlight for me is a raucous reworking of the Ghostbusters theme that now includes the line "Who you gonna call? LESBIANS!" chanted gleefully by the crowd. Like Chesterfield's crooked spire, I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar is an idiosyncratic, irreverent and strangely beautiful show. Holly's "lesbian bar" might not exist outside a few scattered hours in a dark, too-warm Edinburgh venue, but it's undeniably a real place, made of memories, humour, music and hope. — Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.
