Kwame McPherson, winner of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The 57-year-old Jamaican author wins the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize with “Ocoee”, named after the Florida town and site of a brutal racial attack in 1920. The winning story is praised as forcing "a reckoning with the challenge that confronts all writers in the postcolonial world: how to write about a world that has been destroyed without any traces.”

Jamaican writer Kwame McPherson has today been announced as the overall winner of the world’s most global literature prize. McPherson, who this year entered the prize for the seventh time, beat off 6,641 entrants worldwide to take the £5,000 prize.

The Commonwealth Foundation announced his win in an online ceremony, presented by Jamaican journalist Dionne Jackson Miller, in which he and the other four regional winners talk about their writing and read short extracts from their stories. McPherson is the first Jamaican to win the prize.

McPherson’s winning story “Ocoee” interweaves Caribbean folklore and stories from African American history. It takes its name from a town in Florida where, in November 1920, dozens of African-Americans were murdered in a brutal, racially aggravated attack. The story centres on an exhausted driver who is pulled over by the police on a lonely road outside Ocoee. As he hears about the terrible history of the town, he also rediscovers a connection with his own past.  McPherson says he was inspired to write “a mishmash of African American reality and history, and Caribbean folklore’ because he felt that ‘there are so many stories in the African Diaspora experience that are not well known and can be told to open others to that experience.”

The judge representing the Caribbean region, Saint Lucian poet and novelist Mac Donald Dixon says ““Ocoee” traverses genres. Although not set in the Caribbean, the food, the flavours, the people, narration, appearances and disappearances are all there and happening in a logical sequence that imbues the short story with life. It is palpable; there is nothing incredulous about it.”

Chair of the judges, Pakistani writer and translator Bilal Tanweer, says, ‘“Ocoee” forces a reckoning with the challenge that confronts all writers in the postcolonial world: how to write about a world that has been destroyed without any traces. Kwame McPherson takes on the extraordinarily difficult challenge of writing about a past that has left no evidence of its existence. “Ocoee”’s accomplishment is how it achieves this thorny task with simplicity, humility, and real heart. It is a story that resonates deeply and leaves us with a glimpse of all the ghosts that continue to haunt the present, and, in the process, performs one of the most essential tasks of writing: to bear witness to our condition, and to remind us, again, what it means to be human.”

Dr Anne T. Gallagher AO, Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, the intergovernmental organisation that administers the prize, welcomed “a beautiful, painful tale; a story that, once again, reminds us of the many and varied histories that have shaped our modern Commonwealth.”

Kwame McPherson, who lives in Kingston, Jamaica, and names Stephen King as one of his favourite writers, says, “When I began my writing journey, it was not a conscious decision, it was just something I enjoyed doing. Creating and imagining worlds, sharing occurrences and experiences that brought no end of joy in seeing a reader engage and find pleasure in what I have produced. Having the ability to provoke thought, interest or move a reader from one mental and emotional state to the next, is a skill within itself and one I have been blessedly bestowed with and do not take for granted. The culmination of that ability is where I am today, winning a prestigious award, not only for the Caribbean but for the entire Commonwealth. That is no mean feat. I am humbled since I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, especially those scribes, griots and storytellers of our story, fulfilling a purpose I now live, walk and breathe. I am extremely proud I have represented my many friends, family and, importantly, my country Jamaica, in the way that I have.”

Kwame McPherson is a past student of London Metropolitan University and the University of Westminster. He is a 2007 Poetic Soul winner and was the first Jamaican Flash Fiction Bursary Awardee for The Bridport Prize: International Creative Writing Competition in 2020. A prolific writer, Kwame is a recent contributor to Flame Tree Publishing’s (UK) diverse-writing anthologies and a contributor to “The Heart of a Black Man” anthology to be published in Los Angeles, which tells personal inspiring, uplifting and empowering stories from influential and powerful Black men.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is free to enter and is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. It is the only prize in the world where entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish as well as English.

Bilal Tanweer chairs this year’s panel of judges, each representing the five regions of the Commonwealth.  The 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).They chose the overall winner from the line up of regional winners: Asia winner Agnes Chew (Singapore); Canada and Europe winner Rue Baldry  (United Kingdom); Africa winner Hana Gammon (South Africa); and Pacific winner Himali McInnes (New Zealand).

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

The literary magazine Granta has published all of the regional winning stories of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, including “Ocoee”.

The five stories are also available in a special print collection from Paper + Ink (www.paperand.ink).

Global impact on writers’ careers

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize has a reputation for discovering new talent and the prize, as 2018 overall winner Kevin Jared Hosein says, can ‘open doors overnight’, offering publication opportunities, invitations to literary festivals and interest from agents.  Hosein released his first novel for adults, Hungry Ghosts, in 2023 to great acclaim, The Times describing it as ‘an early contender for the Booker’ and has appeared at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, the Hay Festival, Wales, and will speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival this August.

Last year’s overall winner, Ntsika Kota, has spoken on panels at the George Town Literary Festival in Penang, Malaysia. Since winning the prize, Kota has been approached by publishers and literary agents at home and abroad.  Kritika Pandey, the 2020 overall winner, secured her ‘dream agent’ through the prize and is now nearing completion of her first novel. The 2021 winner Kanya D’Almeida also secured an agent and is now working on a collection of short stories.

Submissions for the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize will open on 1 September 2023. Those interested in submitting to the prize can follow @cwfcreatives on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep up to date with the prize via commonwealthfoundation.com/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.

The 2023 regional winners and their stories are:

• 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 (United Kingdom)
• Caribbean: ‘Ocoee’ by Kwame McPherson (Jamaica)
• Pacific: ‘Kilinochchi’ by Himali McInnes (New Zealand)

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. 

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.