2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize is now open for entries.

#2017CommonwealthShortStoryPrize

We’re delighted to let you know that the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize is now open for entries. The closing date is 1 November 2016. The prize is for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000-5,000 words) in English; regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Entry is free.

Stories translated into English are also eligible, and this year we invite writers from writers from Mozambique who write in Portuguese, and writers who write in Samoan, Swahili and Bengali, and who do not have an English translation of their story, to submit their stories in the original language.

The international judging panel this year comprises Zukiswa Wanner (Africa); Mahesh Rao (Asia); Jacqueline Baker (Canada and Europe); Jacob Ross (Caribbean) and Vilsoni Hereniko (Pacific), and the chair is the novelist Kamila Shamsie.


“One of the pleasures of short stories is the potential for encountering both breadth and concentrated depth of writing over the space of just a few stories. In the case of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the geographic range of the entrants, as well as the prize's track record of attracting extraordinary writing, turns that potential into near-certainty.” Kamila Shamsie, Chair, 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Commonwealth Writers is delighted to continue its partnership with Granta Magazine to give the overall and regional winners of the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize the opportunity to have their story edited and published by Granta online.

Read the 2016 winning stories, first published by Granta online, and now all available on our site, together with entries from previous years.

Please see our website, www.commonwealthwriters.org for the entry and eligibility guidelines and the online entry form.

Good luck!