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Commonwealth Book Prize cancelled

Commonwealth Writers has announced that it will no longer offer the Commonwealth Book Prize, and will instead focus its efforts on the Short Story Prize.

Commonwealth Foundation communications manager Sarah Gillam told Books+Publishing that the organisation ‘felt that by concentrating on the short story, it would enable more new writers to come forward’.

Gillam explained that the Commonwealth Short Story Prize allows writers to enter from countries where there is no publishing infrastructure, and that authors writing in languages other than English are able to enter stories translated into English. ‘The criteria for the Book Prize, whereby both the book and the translation have to be published in the same year, made this far less practical,’ said Gillam.

Gillam added that the move will allow the organisation to work more closely with new writers from across the Commonwealth, including on ‘craft development, assisting cultural practitioners who may want to use their work for social change, providing more platforms and opportunities that they might not have otherwise’.

‘New writers may go on to write poetry, radio plays or anthologies and can take advantage of our connections with the African Poetry Prize, the BBC play-writing competition, the Caine prize and our relationship with the literary magazine Granta, which publishes the winning short stories online,’ said Gillam.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction between 2000 and 5000 words. The 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize will open for entries on 1 October 2013 and close on 30 November 2013. Regional winners of the prize will receive £2500 (A$4250) and the overall winner will receive £5000 (A$8500). For more information, visit the website here.

To see the winners of the 2013 Commonwealth Writers prizes, click here.

 

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Category: Local news