Deadline: November 1, 2023
About the competition
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award for unpublished short fiction administered and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation. Entrants must be citizens of a Commonwealth country aged 18 and over.
The story should be adult fiction. There are no restrictions on setting, genre or theme. Entries must be 2,000 words minimum, 5,000 words maximum.
The story must be original work and should not have been published anywhere, in full or in part, in any language, before 1 May 2024.
Submissions are accepted in English, Bengali, Chinese, Creole, English, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish.
The competition is free to enter.
There will be five winners, one from each region (Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean, Pacific). The overall winner will receive £5,000 and the remaining four regional winners £2,500.
Competition guideline
- The story must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words.
- The prize is only open to short fiction, but it can be in any fiction genre–science fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction, crime, romance, literary fiction–and you may write about any subject you wish.
- Submissions are accepted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, English, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. Stories that have been translated into English from any language are also accepted and the translator of any winning story receives additional prize money.
- Check out the whole guideline and submit your entry here.
