The New Face of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and Short Story Competition

The Commonwealth Foundation are (have) reviewed the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Short Story Competition.


Commonwealth Book Prize
Awarded for best first book, this prize is open to writers who have had their first novel (full length work of fiction) published in 2011. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £10,000. 
Both prizes will aim to unearth new writers from across the Commonwealth, with the Writers' Prize giving awards for the best first book only. The prizes will also be complemented by a series of outreach activities in identified countries in order to support aspiring writers.
Thus, unlike previous years when awards were given to both best first book and first book, the new look will only consider 'best first book.'

Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction. Regional winners receive £1,000 and the overall winner receives £5,000.

The new look prizes will be launched in October and request for entries will be opened on October, 18.

Comments

  1. Geosi5 October 2011 at 12:06

    I am wondering if this new face is the best because it would mean that if you're not a first time writer, you can't enter into the award. Or what do you think, Nana.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ImageNations5 October 2011 at 13:03

    @Geosi, exactly. But then the motive now is to bring out new authors. If it is to discover newer authors, then this works best as, for e.g. an established author has a greater opportunity to win an award than a first-time author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cat Island7 October 2011 at 22:51

    I am a Writer, and The President of "The Commonwealth Writers of The Bahamas".We have not participated in these Literary Events because we were not aware of them. We do seek a closer relationship with you. Also, kindly tell us the name of the contact person for our Region so that we can be involved in "Caribbean' Activities. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ImageNations10 October 2011 at 08:26

    I don't work for the Commonwealth. Is there any address to which I can send you a contact?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Help Improve the Blog with a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10. Unexpected Joy at Dawn: My Reading

Image
Title: Unexpected Joy At Dawn Author: Alex Agyei-Agyiri Genre: Novel Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers Pages: 331 Year: 2004 Country: Ghana Unexpected Joy at Dawn is a story of two siblings, Nii and Mama Orojo, during the 1983 deportation of Ghanaians from Nigeria under the Shehu Shagari government. Nii, who is a Nigerian by blood but a Ghanaian by birth, was left in Ghana by his parents as they made the tortuous journey to Nigeria when Ghana enacted the Aliens Compliance Order of 1969, which made every person living in Ghana without the required papers an alien. His name was changed to reflect the name of his adopted parents. After fourteen years of living in hardship in Ghana, which involves living in slums even though he was an Assistant Manager at a bank, taking on multiple jobs, not being able to bury a wife and being chased around by market women for purported 'fraud', he decided to go to Nigeria in search of his roots. Besides, he entertained the fears of being...
Read more

69. The Clothes of Nakedness by Benjamin Kwakye, A Review

Image
Title: The Clothes of Nakedness Author: Benjamin Kwakye Publishers: Heinemann African Writers Series Genre: Fiction/Novel/Class Pages: 212 Year of First Publication: 1998 Country: Ghana For the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners Reading Challenge Benjamin Kwakye 's novel The Clothes of Nakedness  is a compelling narrative directed at a Ghanaian audience, in particular. It reveals the economic hardships existing in our society; it also reveals the intricately woven relationships between the rich and the poor and how the 'seemingly' rich manipulate the poor to further that wealth-dom in this dual economic society where absolute riches exist side by side with abject poverty. The latter scenario is even more stark and pathetic if one knows that Nima and Kanda Estates, two neighbourhoods presented in the story, are real and not just fictional representation made concrete by Kwakye's brilliant mind. The story revolves around thr...
Read more

42. The Blinkards by Kobina Sekyi

Image
Title: The Blinkards, A Comedy and The Anglo-Fanti - A Short Story Author: Kobina Sekyi Genre: Play/Short Story Pages: 256 Publishers: Heinemann/Readwide ISBN: 978-0-435-92784-4 Year of Publication: 1974 (this edition, 1997) Country: Gold Coast (Now Ghana) Setting:  This book contains two stories: The Blinkards - a play and The Anglo-Fanti - a short story . Though the stories are from two different genres, one theme threads through them: the effect of absolute cultural osmosis or better still the consequences of swallowing an alien culture without much scrutiny, as happened in occupied countries popularly referred to by the occupiers as colonies (colonies of what? Ants? Bees?) Both stories took place in Cape Coast and the setting is very significant to the story. Apart from the author being a Fanti from Cape Coast, Cape Coast was the first point of introduction to colonial rule. As a seaport city, it was the first town that was brought under colonial rule; hence ...
Read more