The 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (CSSP) judging panel has been named. Chaired by Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist Caryl Phillips, the judges are selected from the five Commonwealth regions of Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
These judges include Ugandan novelist and short story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Pakistani writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif, Barbados’s Karen Lord, British short story writer Chris Power, and New Zealander poet, playwright, fiction writer and musician Courtney Sina Meredith.
Each year the judges select five winning writers who share a total prize money of £15,000. The overall winner receives £5,000, one of the highest amounts for an international prize for unpublished short stories. Regional winners receive £2,500.
The African regional winner for the 2018 CSSP was Nigeria’s Efua Traore, for her story ‘True Happiness’.
