Joshua Lubwama (Uganda) is one of six shortlisted African authors for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025. (Photo: provided)
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 54 member states.
An international judging panel selected the 25 writers from almost 8,000 total entries – a record-breaking number and nearly ten percent higher than 2024.
Six writers from the African continent feature on the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize shortlist.
Jannike Bergh conducted interviews with the shortlisted authors from Africa. Below is an interview with Joshua Lubwama (Uganda).
Hello and congratulations on being shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025! Please tell me a bit about who you are and what you usually write.
Thank you, thank you. I’m Joshua Lubwama from Kampala, Uganda. I’m 25. I write literary fiction, mostly. I have yet to own a body of work expansive enough to sustain a discussion on it, but as for themes primarily of interest to me, there’s family and identity and social justice. I try with the writing to delve into the emotional and psychological landscapes of my characters, examining how personal and collective histories shape people’s lives.
Could you tell me about your country and what you experience as story material in the country you are from? How does one shed clichés and tell a story that is uniquely one’s own and universal at the same time?
Uganda is no longer as central in the African literary scene as it once was. The ’60s and ’70s saw the country as a vibrant and influential literary centre, particularly with Makerere University being a hub for East African literary talents like Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Okot p’Bitek. But that has since changed. We have the Nigerians and South Africans and Kenyans and Ghanaians writing all the books and gaining an international readership.
As a country, we’ve got – I would say – an interesting post-colonial history, punctuated with stints of bloodshed and unrest, but we’ve also got some of the most pleasant and hospitable people in the world. And we’re a very young population, the second youngest in the world, with over three quarters of us below 35.
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The universality of our experiences means that it’s very easy to fall into clichés, so originality comes down to rendering and perspective. Everybody happens to have a perspective that’s uniquely theirs and is therefore well worth tapping into.
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Story material? I wouldn’t say what exactly, because it’s different every time, and you just know it when it happens. The politics of society, familial and marital dynamics, schoolboy experiences, and – most recently – the workplace, are all making it into my stories. I find that all there is to do is to keep my eyes open.
If one hopes to shed clichés, it helps to pay attention. One has to know what’s been written and the perspectives from which it’s been approached. The universality of our experiences means that it’s very easy to fall into clichés, so originality comes down to rendering and perspective. Everybody happens to have a perspective that’s uniquely theirs and is therefore well worth tapping into. It is essentially the same thing as embracing one’s peculiarities.
What is your story about, and what inspired you to write this specific story?
My story is about a young boy who, against his mother’s wishes, befriends a woman who has recently moved into the neighbourhood. There’s a lot of prejudice surrounding the woman, unbeknown to the boy, who through his curious and rebellious nature is led to discover a side to the woman’s character that is inconsistent with what his mother paints her out to be. The boy’s newfound alliance sets up a tension between the two women. The story is also about childhood dreams, and also about the weight of shame.
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My late grandmother considered shame to be a curse word, and I spent the longest time wondering why.
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I had to draw from many of my childhood experiences, having aspired to be a footballer myself when I was a boy. My late grandmother considered shame to be a curse word, and I spent the longest time wondering why. Last year, I read Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote about it being the most humane thing to spare somebody shame, and I thought back to my grandmother. I do recall the first time I found out as a boy that she was illiterate. I wondered how anybody could live in this world not knowing how to read and write, but the revelation itself helped explain so many of the mysteries surrounding our previous interactions.
Do you think stories can make a difference? Tell me about a story you have read that you still think about.
Yes, stories do make a difference. They can be a means for propagating change, both good and bad. Bharati Mukherjee’s “Orbiting” is one story that I still think about. The story delves into the challenges and experiences of immigrants, including the struggles of adapting to a new culture and navigating racial discrimination. It talks about how there’s always more to people – there’s always more to people. Reading it had me dispensing with all the excuses I had previously had for people – and myself – harbouring unconscious biases.
What does it mean for you to be shortlisted for a prize like this?
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is one I’ve been looking at for a long time, so to be shortlisted this year feels surreal. It has been my hope and prayer ever since I made the longlist last year, and here we are now, so it’s everything. It has given me licence to dream. For my story – “Mothers not appearing in search” – to appeal to an international panel of judges means the world to me. See, one day you’re spending lonesome hours at the dining table wrestling a story into existence – with the entire process shrouded in self-doubt – and then the next, these Commonwealth Foundation people are telling you they’re absolutely thrilled to let you know that you’re shortlisted. How about that for validation?
What is your writing process, and what do you typically do once you have finished a piece and sent it into the world?
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I almost always come to the page with a fully formed idea. I very seldom have to formulate the idea while staring at the blank page. This usually means that I play with the story idea for a bit in my head, evaluating it for viability and originality and interest. So, the skeleton of the story is what I’m working on when I’m staring into the distance.
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I almost always come to the page with a fully formed idea. I very seldom have to formulate the idea while staring at the blank page. This usually means that I play with the story idea for a bit in my head, evaluating it for viability and originality and interest. So, the skeleton of the story is what I’m working on when I’m staring into the distance. And then I get down to writing. I work almost entirely at the computer. So, I come to the page with maybe 80 percent of the story figured out, although there’s no guarantee that the story will turn out as originally intended. Often, I’m surprised by my characters, their tendency to deviate and their attempt to carve out their own arcs, which I’ve always thought to be really cool. After two drafts, I edit for a third, then I’m lucky if I can get a second opinion, and that’s it.
Once I have finished a piece and sent it out into the world, I usually do the maths, gauging my chances of victory if it’s a prize or publication in a magazine. It’s my way of managing my expectations. And then, of course, I reread, and I can tell you that no matter how thorough the revision has been, there are always certain typos that will only reveal themselves once I’ve sent out that email. Over time, I have come to expect that. And lastly, I recline in relief, because it’s really hard to see it through – and also because finishing something brings with it that feeling of accomplishment, which is second to none. To borrow Joyce Carol Oates’s words, there’s a neurophysiological impact when you do something to its completion. It’s a surge of energy, a galvanising force for juniors like me.
A fast-changing world has introduced AI into our lives, whether we like it or not. While some embrace it and include it in their creative process, what are your thoughts on the matter?
I guess I should be thankful that the question is inherently biased. No, I don’t like artificial intelligence to have anything to do with artistic endeavours, especially not now when there are little to no ethical standards and frameworks with regard to it. Whatever happened to the dream of us having these AIs do our housework so we humans can focus on the creative and fun bits, God only knows. But it’s here to stay, so I don’t know, really.
From your experience, what advice or message do you have for young writers?
It’s very important that they take the time to work on their craft. They should take writing classes and utilise the plethora of resources online. Why? Neil Gaiman said, “Before you can be eccentric, you have to know where the circle is.” And while at it, they should gauge proficiency. You want to learn from the very best – although the “very best” is often subjectively selected.
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No amount of reading about the nature of water can substitute for diving in, if one ever hopes to be an expert swimmer. Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it. If you look at the juvenilia of many famous writers, it’s usually pretty bad.
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And then, of course, they have to do the actual writing. No amount of reading about the nature of water can substitute for diving in, if one ever hopes to be an expert swimmer. Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it. If you look at the juvenilia of many famous writers, it’s usually pretty bad. James Patterson relates a story about a certain bestselling author who was in retrospect so embarrassed by the quality of his first book, that when he was wealthy enough, he went around buying back all the copies of said book from people and bookstores. So, it’s very important that young writers get to a similar place, where they can look back on their earlier work and cringe. It’s a marker for personal growth, and the only way to get there is to keep writing.
Also read:
Press release: 2025 Commonwealth short story prize shortlist announced
Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025 shortlist: an interview with Stephen M Finn
Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025 shortlist: an interview with Priscilla Ametorpe Goka
Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2025 shortlist: an interview with Vashish Jaunky
