Soteriou emerges 2019 Commonwealth Prize overall winner

Cypriot Constantia Soteriou has been announced winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for ‘Death Customs’, the first translated story to win the prize. ‘Death Customs’ was translated from Greek into English by Lina Protopapa, a translator and cultural critic based in Cyprus. Soteriou said ‘I feel honoured and happy to win this amazing […]

Cypriot Constantia Soteriou has been announced winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for ‘Death Customs’, the first translated story to win the prize.

‘Death Customs’ was translated from Greek into English by Lina Protopapa, a translator and cultural critic based in Cyprus.

Soteriou said ‘I feel honoured and happy to win this amazing prize. It feels like a reward for all the hard work I have been doing over the last eight years, writing about the perspectives of women on the political and historical events of Cyprus. This prize is a recognition for giving voice to those who did not have the chance to be heard before; those who were left behind to pick up the mess of the war. I grew up seeing the faces of the mothers and the wives of the missing people; those were the real victims of the war. Women should not be victims of any war. Women are the continuation of life. I wrote this story to salute their strength.’

The Chair of judges, Caryl Philips, described the story as “a remarkable short story that manages to be both personal, following, as it does, the painful narrative of a woman who has lost her son, and deeply political, in that it charts the division of a land as it topples into civil war.”

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1975, Soteriou’s first novel ‘Aishe Goes on Vacation’ received the Athens Prize for Literature award. Her second book ‘Voices Made of Soil’ was included on the shortlist for the Cyprus Literature Awards. She has written plays for independent stages and for the Cyprus Theatre Organization.

Protopapa lives in Nicosia, Cyprus, where she works as a translator and cultural critic.

‘Death Customs’ is a story about the women of Cyprus, mothers or wives who were left to believe that their beloved persons were missing after the 1974 war, while the state had clear evidence about their death. It is a story of death customs, memories, bitterness and justice.

Nigeria’s Adorah Nworah was in the shortlist for her story, ‘The Bride’, but lost to Zambia’s ‘Mbozi Haimbe’.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction, 2,000 to 5,000 words, in English. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Translated entries are also eligible, as are stories written in the original Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish. The competition is free to enter.

Nigeria’s Efua Traore emerged winner, in the African region category, last year.