Makumbi wins Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Ugandan author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi has won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for ‘Let’s Tell This Story Properly’. The £5000 (A$9030) prize is presented annually to the best piece of unpublished short fiction between 2000 and 5000 words, selected from the five regional winners of the prize. Judging panel chair Ellah Wakatama Allfey said Makumbi’s story, ‘with its bereaved widow living in London and gaggle of feisty “women of a certain age” disrupting a funeral, and its narrative style that draws on a powerful national heritage of dramatic story-telling, significantly expanded our understanding of the possibilities of the short story form’. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Australian author Lucy Treloar was the Pacific regional winner for her story ‘The Dog and the Sea’.

Category: International news