X-raying 2017’s Commonwealth Prize winning stories

On June 30, Ingrid Persaud from Trinidad and Tobago (Caribbean Region) was announced overall winner of the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She beat four regional winners; Nigeria’s Akwaeke Emezi (Africa Region), Tracy Fells (Canada and Europe Region), Anushka Jasraj (Asia Region), and Nat Newman (Pacific Region).  The Prize, open to writers of Commonwealth member […]

On June 30, Ingrid Persaud from Trinidad and Tobago (Caribbean Region) was announced overall winner of the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She beat four regional winners; Nigeria’s Akwaeke Emezi (Africa Region), Tracy Fells (Canada and Europe Region), Anushka Jasraj (Asia Region), and Nat Newman (Pacific Region). 

The Prize, open to writers of Commonwealth member countries, selects its winners annually from Commonwealth’s five regions. What’s noteworthy about this year’s winners is that all of them are women. Here, I give you a review of the five stories

Emezi’s ‘Who is Like God’

Who is like God? Indeed you may ask. No one, no one, a congregation of worshippers would most likely intone, assuming we are in a house of worship and you are the preacher. But we’re not. We’re in the home of Kachi, a boy who tells us his story while we simply listen and wonder. 

Kachi, from childhood, likes to help his mother in the kitchen-when his father isn’t home-while his sister, Ure dodged what was expected of her as a girl. But when Kachi begins to try on make-up, we all get worried, like his mother, who gives him the beating of his life. Is Kachi gay? We, like his mother, also wonder. This is the story that earned Emezi the coveted 2017 Africa regional prize for the Commonwealth Short Story contest. This story draws you in, and you feel Kachi’s pain and confusion. Suddenly he wonders where the God in his mother is, the God he had imagined was folded into her. Where is He while she punishes Kachi for what he doesn’t understand?   

Newman’s ‘The Death of Margaret Row’

This story makes you think of old Western movies. You picture wood houses and men and women in hats and carriages. And like many Western movies, there’s a bar, and that’s where this tale begins. There’s so much mystery and you begin to think of the subject of the story, Havilah Brown, as a man with dark secrets. You are not wrong. This is what keeps a reader patient, even when the narrator, Jenny, who owns the bar, takes her time telling: But Havilah always sat at the bar, drinking his tea and making nothing in the way of small talk. He lurked there in that in-between place, and I felt every centimetre of his quiet bulk. He scared me a little, as I think he scared everyone a little. Everyone except for Margaret Roe.

What makes a man reclusive until a certain woman dies? Apparently, Havilah’s secret or secrets are tied to this Margaret Roe, and the author unravels this strand after strand after her death. It’s suspense all the way, and this story can only be lost on anyone looking to learn what the message is, really. But not every writer writes with that purpose. 

Jasraj’s ‘Drawing Lessons’

This story caught my attention because its set in India, but the dialogue wasn’t in quote marks and this was challenging for me. I have read a story without quote marks before and really enjoyed it, but this was different. It is about a woman called Moira, who’s learning to be an artist.

Aside the passion for drawing, there was little else that was passionate about Moira life, including her marriage. Things don’t get better when her husband confides in her tutor about Moira’s condition and their inability to get a child. Then there’s her husband’s late nights, which she evades confronting. This story builds up and toward the end I was carried away by the pain and silent suffering of this woman who desires so much to give birth, I totally enjoyed it. Many Nigerian women would certainly identify with this story. 

Everything before sick Miss Bethan whispers she has something she wants her maid, Sofia, to do, fade away in this tale: 

Miss Bethan quietly repeats Sofia’s request and Adam stands. He kisses his mother’s cheek then shuffles to the door, stooping so as not to bang his head. Once the boy has left, Sofia sweeps the soil from the chair to sit beside her employer. It takes some minutes for Miss Bethan to recover enough strength to continue.

She asks Sofia to do a terrible thing. Something a mother should never ask.

The suspense is thick, the imagery, as real as day. And the mystery is who Adam is, the young man who calls Miss Bethan ‘mamma’. Yes, she once had a husband, but there wasn’t a child before she was widowed. The suspense gets thicker. Sofia and Adam have a nightly ritual, where they catch moths in their palms and give them names, and then let them go. At least where Sofia came from is certain, but Miss Bethany claimed she made her son from the earth. Perhaps she wanted something pure and innocent, something the world had no power over? And maybe, even though it was all in her head, it did work for her.

Persaud’s ‘The Sweet Sop’

This is the story that won the overall prize in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It’s hard to follow because of the awkward English, something like, perhaps a Caribbean version of Pidgin English. 

In a way Moms have a point. Is only after Reggie passed away that things got real dread. They say the Leukaemia take him. That is part of the truth. I know the other part. The truth about what happened the night Reggie died is something I taking with me to the grave.

I guess it’s fair to say others may feel the same about Nigeria’s pidgin. Anyway, the story is about a boy whose parents are separated and his father visits him only occasionally. Then one day, his father sends for him from his dying bed and he has to battle the desire to punish his father for neglecting. Narrated in the first person, this story grows on you and is as realistic as any tale can get.