In an announcement today, the Commonwealth Foundation announced that Vincentian Cecil Browne has won the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for (Canada and Europe).
In addition to the 65-year-old former maths teacher from St Vincent and the Grenadines, a number of shortlisted entrants also won awards including Canadian David McIlwraith, Cypriot Alexandra Manglis, Gibraltarian Jonathan Pizarro and UK entrants Farah Ahamed, J S Gomes and P R Woods.
Cecil will move on to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 21 June.
Set in mid-19th-century St Vincent, the winning story, ‘A Hat for Lemer’ is the story of a woman who is faced with a dilemma after Emancipation. When an estate owner Noah Brisbane implores her to find a missing Methodist minister new to the island, she has to decide whether to accept the task. The fee could build a house for herself and one for her parents, but can she ignore who Brisbane is and what he represents?
Commenting on his win Cecil says, ‘Discovering that I was the regional winner filled me with a private joy, but this quickly turned into the kind of joy I experience when the family is together for some function, all three generations, along with our close friends. ‘A Hat for Lemer’ portrays early Vincentian society, and the dilemma Lemer faces as she seeks to define a role for herself within that society. The story is dear to me. Within it are people with energy and drive, optimists negotiating a world restricting and modern.’
An international judging panel chaired by Guyanese writer Fred D’Aguiar chose the story from a shortlist of 26.
Chairman of the Judges, Guyanese writer Fred D’Aguiar, observes, “This year’s regional winners offer a cornucopia of riches for readers around the world.” They demonstrate the diversity of fiction, from oblique to direct references, with moments of character revelation to planet-endangering stories.
The judge representing the Canada and Europe region, Cypriot writer and academic Stephanos Stephanides writes, ‘The spunky narrator’s voice speaks with verve in the island’s vernacular and is the driving force that carries the narrative.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize, which is administered by the Commonwealth Foundation, is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 54 Member States. 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, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish.
The five regional winners’ stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta, ahead of the announcement of the overall winner.
The 2022 overall winner will be announced in an online ceremony at 1 pm, Tuesday 21 June, and at a special event as part of the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.
