The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022: an interview with Ntsika Kota

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Ntsika Kota (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The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 54 member states. 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 in part reflects the richness of the Commonwealth, not least its many and varied literary traditions. In 2022, 408 entries were in languages other than English. The stories on the 2022 shortlist were selected from a total of 6 730 entries from 52 Commonwealth countries.

See the shortlist of this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Naomi Meyer conducted interviews with the shortlisted authors from Africa. Below is an interview with Ntsika Kota.

Congratulations on your short story, nominated for this year’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize! Please would you tell me what your story is about and what inspired you to write your story?

My story, And the earth drank deep, follows the emergence of a serial killer in a prehistoric hunter-gatherer society. It follows a young man after he discovers in himself a fondness for seeing life extinguished. The title refers to how blood soaks into dry soil immediately, whether it’s a drop or a gush.

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My story, And the earth drank deep, follows the emergence of a serial killer in a prehistoric hunter-gatherer society. It follows a young man after he discovers in himself a fondness for seeing life extinguished.
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The spark of the idea ignited spontaneously one afternoon while my mind was wandering away from the task in front of me. A question popped into my head: “Who was the first serial killer?”

I thought about how a prehistoric society would view a serial murderer in their midst. I thought that someone who killed members of the in-group would likely be viewed very differently from a warrior in an intertribal conflict. As I followed that mental thread, my vision of that setting became ever more elaborate. I decided to try write out a possible answer to that initial question.

It was possible to take part in this competition in languages other than English (entries could be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil and Turkish). Tell me about the language you used for your entry. Did you write in your home language? If you wrote in English, do you think the language you speak at home was reflected in the English that you used? Speak to me about the language you used as tool for your writing.

The story is written in English rather than siSwati (the indigenous language of eSwatini). Essentially, the choice was a purely practical one. For better or worse, my English is far more polished than my written and spoken siSwati.

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That being said, I used genericised features of local cultures and languages to help add detail. The setting, an early hunter-gatherer society, naturally suggested sub-Saharan Africa, and southern Africa in particular. That allowed me to use names from the Nguni languages (a group of languages from southern Africa which share many features) to create a tribe that was believable, albeit inauthentic to Nguni culture (because the tribespeople in the story do not raise cattle).
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That being said, I used genericised features of local cultures and languages to help add detail. The setting, an early hunter-gatherer society, naturally suggested sub-Saharan Africa, and southern Africa in particular. That allowed me to use names from the Nguni languages (a group of languages from southern Africa which share many features) to create a tribe that was believable, albeit inauthentic to Nguni culture (because the tribespeople in the story do not raise cattle).

What did this nomination mean to you, and what are your writing dreams for the future?

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I’m not a professional writer, and I’m not necessarily trying to become one. However, I believe this nomination is an acknowledgement of how far I’ve come since I started practising writing creatively a few years ago.
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I’m not a professional writer, and I’m not necessarily trying to become one. However, I believe this nomination is an acknowledgement of how far I’ve come since I started practising writing creatively a few years ago. This is a huge honour, and I hope that someday I’ll be able to write at this level consistently and better. Ultimately, I want to be able to write the kinds of stories I’ve always enjoyed reading, based on the worlds I daydream about.

Also read:

Press release: 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winners announced

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2021: an interview with Moso Sematlane from Lesotho

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2021: an interview with Rémy Ngamije from Namibia

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2021: an interview with Ola W Halim from Nigeria

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2021: an interview with Franklyn Usouwa from Nigeria

Press release – 2022 Commonwealth short story prize: shortlist announced

 

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