Our warmest congratulations to Diana McCaulay (Jamaica) and Cecil Browne (United Kingdom/St. Vincent and the Grenadines) who had been chosen as winners of the 2022 Commonwealth Brief Story Prize for his or her respective areas. The 2022 general winner might be introduced in a web based ceremony at 1:00pm, Tuesday, June 21, and at a particular occasion as a part of the Commonwealth Individuals’s Discussion board in Kigali, Rwanda.
Diana McCaulay (Jamaica) is the winner for the CARIBBEAN together with her story “Bridge Over the Yallahs River”—a narrative in regards to the impacts of short-term building work by abroad crews on neighborhood life in Jamaica, illustrated by the wrenching decisions a father should make between his skill to earn and his daughter’s well being.
Kevin Jared Hosein (choose, Caribbean area) wrote: “’Bridge Over the Yallahs River’ is the story of a storm-struck bridge and the assorted individuals tasked to re-build it. It transports the reader to the small riverside village of Again To. Fashionable political powers have stored it in a type of post-colonial Sisyphean stasis. The brand new bridge appears to be the catalyst for one thing hopeful. Lengthy-needed restore. Because the bridge progresses, the residents and the Chinese language building staff type an unconventional symbiotic bond – just for their actions on the finish to announce that greater than a bodily bridge had been damaged. A story of simultaneous triumph and botchery; loss and reclamation; comedy and tragedy.”
Diana McCaulay is a Jamaican environmental activist and author. She has written 5 novels – Canine-Coronary heart, Huracan (Peepal Tree Press), Gone to Drift (Papillote Press and HarperCollins), White Liver Gal (self-published) and Daylight Come (Peepal Tree Press). She was the Caribbean regional winner of the Commonwealth Brief Story Prize in 2012, for ‘The Dolphin Catchers’. She can be on the editorial board of Pree, a web based journal for Caribbean writing.
Diana McCaulay mentioned, “What an absolute thrill to be taught that my story, ‘Bridge over the Yallahs River’, has received the regional prize for the Caribbean within the 2022 Commonwealth Brief Story prize. I needed to write down in regards to the battle I noticed so regularly throughout my environmental life – the heavy prices of what we name ‘improvement’, who pays these prices, the painful decisions individuals should make between their livelihoods and their lives and the various methods through which they battle again.”
Cecil Browne (United Kingdom / St Vincent and the Grenadines) is the winner for CANADA AND EUROPE together with his story “A Hat for Lemer”—The story of a lady who’s confronted with a dilemma after Emancipation. When property proprietor Noah Brisbane implores her to discover a lacking Methodist minister new to the island, she has to determine whether or not to just accept the duty. The price may construct a home for herself and one for her mother and father, however can she ignore who Brisbane is and what he represents?
Stephanos Stephanides (choose, Canada and Europe) wrote: “A hanging and authentic story set in mid-Nineteenth century post-Emancipation St. Vincent. The spunky narrator’s voice speaks with verve within the island’s vernacular and is the driving pressure that carries the narrative. As a toddler of runaway slaves, the protagonist grew up within the island’s troublesome and volcanic hinterland and is aware of how one can navigate the lay of the land and the range of the individuals who inhabit it: Whites, Blacks, Mulattos, Caribs. Sooner or later, an property proprietor unexpectedly arrives at her mountain shack, the place she makes a dwelling as an herbalist, to rent her providers to discover a lacking ‘faculty inspector’ who got here from England. Her seek for the mysterious ‘faculty inspector’ takes us on a journey that surprises at each flip; the thriller unfolds as Lemer takes us alongside her quest from faculty to brothel, via commerce depots and Estates, encountering drunken sailors whose crimson lips are repellent even to flies, courtesans with breasts like agency candy mangoes, secure boys and Carib boatmen. Within the compressed house of a brief story, we’re left with a visceral understanding of a tradition at a vital level of social and historic transition, seen via the imaginative and prescient and voice of an empathetic protagonist coming into her personal.”
Cecil Browne was born in St Vincent and the Grenadines however has lived within the UK since his teenagers. A school lecturer in Maths for over 35 years, he loves cricket, writing and music. His brief story, ‘Coming Off the Lengthy Run’ was revealed within the So Many Islands anthology in 2018. He has simply completed writing his debut novel.
Cecil Browne mentioned, “Discovering that I used to be the regional winner stuffed me with a non-public pleasure, however this rapidly become the form of pleasure I expertise when the household is collectively for some perform, all three generations, together with our shut buddies. ‘A Hat for Lemer’ portrays early Vincentian society, and the dilemma Lemer faces as she seeks to outline a task for herself inside that society. The story is expensive to me. Inside it are individuals with vitality and drive, optimists negotiating a world each limiting and trendy.”
For extra data on all winners, see https://www.commonwealthwriters.org/shortstoryprize/regional-winners/
Additionally see https://petchary.wordpress.com/2022/05/23/jamaicas-diana-mccaulay-wins-commonwealth-short-story-prize-for-the-caribbean-for-the-second-time/