{"id":72911,"date":"2021-05-13T16:32:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T21:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=72911"},"modified":"2021-05-13T16:32:51","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T21:32:51","slug":"sri-lankas-kanya-dalmeida-is-asia-winner-of-2021-commonwealth-short-story-prize-with-her-story-titled-i-cleaned-the-dirty-work-which-ta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=72911","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s Kanya D\u2019Almeida is Asia Winner of 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize with her story titled -\u2018I Cleaned The\u2014\u2019\u2018dirty work,\u2019 which talks of “domestic labour, but also love among the rambutan and clove trees of Sri Lanka”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Commonwealth Foundation on Wednesday announced the regional winners of the world\u2019s most global literary prize, with Sri Lankan author Kanya D\u2019Almeida winning the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) for her story, \u2018I Cleaned The\u2014\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 35-year-old author from Sri Lanka fought off competition from a strong field of shortlisted entrants including Indian authors Aravind Jayan, Riddhi Dastidar, Ling Low from Malaysia and Nur Khan from Pakistan to become the Asia winner. She will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 30 June.<\/p>\n

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Sri Lanka\u2019s D\u2019Almeida\u2019s winning story, \u2018I Cleaned The\u2014\u2019 is a story about \u2018dirty work\u2019: domestic labour, abandonment, romantic encounters behind bathroom doors, and human waste. It is a story about the things we leave behind.<\/p>\n

Asia judge Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam, says, \u201cEven among Asia\u2019s gratifyingly strong showing in this year\u2019s Commonwealth short fiction sweepstakes, Kanya\u2019s submission stood out. A life-affirming story of love among the rambutan and clove trees of Sri Lanka \u2013 love for a baby not one\u2019s own, love for a high-spirited elderly woman. Love found not among the stars but in human excrement. Literally. And all the more glorious for it. Just as class differences are subtly shaded, so too the narrator is aptly, and exquisitely, named Ishwari (Sanskrit for Goddess, with a capital \u2018G\u2019). A tale powerfully realised.\u201d<\/p>\n

D\u2019Almeida started writing the story shortly after her son was born. She says, \u201cI was sitting on a rocking chair nursing him and watching the woman I\u2019d hired to cook and clean for me washing his cloth nappies. And a voice in my head asked: \u2018who is this child\u2019s mother, you, or the person cleaning his shit?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Commenting on her win, D\u2019Almeida adds, \u201cWriting in the English language, in a former British colony, means you\u2019re never quite at home in language. All around you a world is unfolding in other tongues; words must either be cramped or elongated to fit circumstances that are decidedly not English; and your characters themselves may be unfamiliar with the language of your own story! That\u2019s why I believe the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is such a haven for writers across the world\u2014it is perhaps the only forum large enough to accommodate the many expressions of language that thrive from region to region. To be in the company of such a diversity of voices, to have my story read by such a diversity of judges, and to see the story emerge as one of the regional winners, is one of the great honours of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story was selected from a shortlist of 25 by the international judging panel, chaired by South African writer Zo\u00eb Wicomb. The other panellists are Nigerian writer A. Igoni Barrett; Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam; British poet and fiction writer Keith Jarrett; Jamaican environmental activist, award-winning writer and 2012 Caribbean regional winner Diana McCaulay; and award-winning author and 2016 Pacific regional winner Tina Makereti from New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 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, English, French, Greek, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. <\/p>\n

The full list of regional winners is as follows: Africa: \u2018Granddaughter of The Octopus\u2019 by R\u00e9my Ngamije (Namibia); Asia: \u2018I Cleaned The\u2014\u2019 by Kanya D\u2019Almeida (Sri Lanka); Canada and Europe: \u2018Turnstones\u2019 by Carol Farrelly (UK); Caribbean: \u2018The Disappearance of Mumma Dell\u2019 by Roland Watson-Grant (Jamaica); Pacific: \u2018Fertile Soil\u2019 by Katerina Gibson (Australia).<\/p>\n

The five regional winners\u2019 stories will be published online by the literary magazine Granta in the run-up to the announcement of the overall winner and published in a special print edition by Paper + Ink.<\/p>\n

Granta\u2019s Deputy Editor Luke Neima says, \u201cGranta magazine is proud to be partnering with the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in this its 10th anniversary, by publishing the regional and overall prize winners for 2021. Over the past decade the reach and the influence of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize has grown rapidly, and for very good reason. This year\u2019s regional winners bear testament to the quality of the writing that the prize attracts, and its success, time and again, in bringing to light talented new voices who would otherwise have no clear route to finding a global audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Foundation also announced a new three-year partnership with The London Library, which includes the offer of a year\u2019s Full Membership to the five regional winners and two years\u2019 Full Membership to the overall winner.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is administered by the Commonwealth Foundation, through its cultural initiative Commonwealth Writers.<\/p>\n

The 2020 overall winner will be announced during a special award ceremony which will be broadcast online at 1 p.m. BST on 30 June. <\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Commonwealth Foundation on Wednesday announced the regional winners of the world\u2019s most global literary prize, with Sri Lankan author Kanya D\u2019Almeida winning the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) for her story, \u2018I Cleaned The\u2014\u2019 The 35-year-old author from Sri Lanka fought off competition from a strong field of shortlisted entrants including Indian authors …<\/p>\n

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