New Zealander Himali McInnes Is Pacific Winner, 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Commonwealth Foundation has announced the regional winners of the world’s most global literary prize.

New Zealander Himali McInnes has won the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific). The 49-year-old, who lives in Auckland, beat off strong competition from four other shortlisted writers: Dennis Kikira from Papua New Guinea as well as Australians Jean Flynn, Janeen Samuel and Emma Sloley. She will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 27 June.

McInnes’s winning story, ‘Kilinochchi’, is set during an especially bloody time in Sri Lanka's civil war. Nisha, the protagonist, an up-country Tamil tea-picker, comes from a long line of indentured labourers. She marries a New Zealander and moves there with her son – who later returns to Sri Lanka to take up arms with the Tamil Tigers. Desperate to find her child Nisha follows him to into the war zone, in Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka.

McInnes says, ‘“Kilinochchi” draws on the disparate themes of civil war, indentured servitude, the formation of identity, and the supernatural. It is a story that just spilled out of me; once the person of Nisha appeared in my mind, the rest followed, and I couldn’t stop writing. I particularly enjoyed writing about Nisha’s ghostly relatives and the freedom they have in the after-life.’

McInnes adds, ‘The way the past affects us is something that I am constantly aware of, both in my writing and in my day job as a doctor. The narrative of this story is influenced by my identity as a Sri Lankan New Zealander who doesn’t feel fully at home in either country. It is also influenced by the sadness I feel over the blood that has been shed on Lankan soil. Although I have lived most of my life outside Sri Lanka, I worked there from 2007-2009 during the last stages of the brutal civil war. So many atrocities, so many unhealed wounds.’

The judge representing the Pacific region, New Zealand’s former Poet Laureate Dr. Selina Tusitala Marsh, says, ‘Nothing is ever simple, nothing is ever straight forward – except a mother’s unwavering desire to find her child. Crossing continents, moving through cultural collisions, and chaotic inner and outer journeys of human trauma and resilience, Himali McInnes’ ‘Kilinochchi’ moves between New Zealand and Sri Lanka, Tamil and Sinhala, the living who repel, and the dead who guide.’ She praised ‘an unforgettable story that explores family loyalty, gender, class and social inequity, war, life in the diaspora, and our fundamental need to belong. We discover that what can never be stolen, destroyed or lost, is love.’

The story was selected as the regional winner for the Pacific by an international judging panel chaired by Pakistani writer and translator Bilal Tanweer, representing the five regions of the Commonwealth. The regional judges are Rwandan-born writer, photographer and editor, Rémy Ngamije (Africa), Sri Lankan author and publisher Ameena Hussein (Asia), British-Canadian author Katrina Best (Canada and Europe), Saint Lucian poet and novelist Mac Donald Dixon (Caribbean), and New Zealand’s former Poet Laureate, Dr. Selina Tusitala Marsh (Pacific).

Download judges’ photographs and biographies here

Chair of the Judges Bilal Tanweer had this to say about the judging process: ‘It was both an agony and a pleasure to choose the overall winner from each region. All of the winning stories demonstrated impressive ambition and deep love for storytelling, combined with an intimate understanding of place and a real mastery of the craft. The judges were unanimous in their admiration of these stories and how they sought to tackle difficult metaphysical and historical questions.’

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 Member States. This year 6,642 entries were submitted for the award. It is the most accessible and international of all writing competitions: in addition to English, entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. Such linguistic diversity in a short story prize reflects in part the richness of the Commonwealth, not least its many and varied literary traditions. In 2023, 475 entries were submitted in languages other than English.

The full list of regional winners is as follows:

Africa: ‘The Undertaker's Apprentice’ by Hana Gammon (South Africa)
Asia: ‘Oceans Away from my Homeland’ by Agnes Chew (Singapore)
Canada and Europe: ‘Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things’ by Rue Baldry (UK)
Caribbean: ‘Ocoee’ by Kwame McPherson (Jamaica)
Pacific: ‘Kilinochchi’ by Himali McInnes (New Zealand)

Download authors’ photographs and biographies here

The five regional winners’ stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta, ahead of the announcement of the overall winner.

Granta’s Deputy Editor and Managing Director Luke Neima says, ‘We're thrilled to be publishing the regional winners of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize at Granta. Year after year the prize has put a spotlight on extraordinary new talents working across the Commonwealth, and this cohort is one of exceptional promise and talent.'

As part of the Commonwealth Foundation’s partnership with The London Library, the overall winner receives two years’ Full Membership to the Library and the regional winners receive a year’s Full Membership.

The 2023 overall winner will be announced in an online ceremony at 1pm BST, Tuesday 27 June.

Be the first to know the overall winner of the prize by following @cwfcreatives on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep up to date with the prize via commonwealthfoundation.com/short-story-prize/

ENDS

About Himali McInnes

Himali McInnes works as a family doctor in a busy Auckland practice and in the prison system. She is a constant gardener, a chicken farmer, and a beekeeper. Himali writes short stories, essays, flash fiction and poetry, and has been published in various journals and anthologies. Her non-fiction book The Unexpected Patient was published in 2021.

About Dr. Selina Tusitala Marsh (Judge representing the Pacific region)

Selina Tusitala Marsh (ONZM, FRSNZ) is the former Commonwealth Poet, New Zealand Poet Laureate and acclaimed performer and author. In 2019 she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to poetry, literature and the Pacific community. In 2020 Selina was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Selina lectures in the English Department at the University of Auckland where she teaches Pacific Literature and Creative Writing. She has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry, Fast Talking PI (2009), Dark Sparring (2013), and Tightrope (2017). Her graphic memoir, Mophead (2019), won the Margaret Mahy Supreme Book in the 2020 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and won the PANZ Best Book Design for 2020. Its sequel, Mophead TU: The Queen's Poem was shortlisted for the NZ Book Awards (2021). She has just completed Mophead: KNOT Book 3 and is working on a genre-bending graphic poetry anthology on first wave Pacific women poets from 16 Pacific Island nations.

About the Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is administered by the Commonwealth Foundation. The prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2000-5000 words). Regional winners receive £2,500 GBP and the overall winner receives £5,000 GBP. Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible.

About the Commonwealth Foundation

The Commonwealth Foundation is an intergovernmental organisation established by Heads of Government in support of the belief that the Commonwealth is as much an association of peoples as it is of governments. It is the Commonwealth agency for civil society; an organisation dedicated to strengthening people’s participation in all aspects of public dialogue, so they can act together and learn from each other to build free, open and democratic societies. commonwealthfoundation.com