4 Canadians nominated for $8K Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Four Canadians are among the 25 writers shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The Canadian finalists areVincent Anioke, Cara Marks, Ian Stewart and Joshua Wales.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the writers who live in the 54 Commonwealth countries.

This year's shortlist was selected from 6,423 entries, which were submitted from 50countries.

Aniokeis a finalist forOgbuefi. Aniokeis a Nigerian Canadian writer who currently lives in Ontario. He works as a software engineer at Google. He also made the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Utopia.

Stewart is nominated for Class Struggle. He is a writer and artist from Montreal. He was also longlisted for the 2020 CBC Short Story Prize forComparative Literature.

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Wales is being recognized for Mass Effect. He is a palliative care physician and writer from Toronto. He previously won the2020 Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award.

Marks is a finalist for Starry Night. She lives in Vancouver and was previously longlisted for the Journey Prize and theCVC Short Fiction Competition.

Five regional winners will be selected, one representing each Commonwealth region: Canada and Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

An overall winner will be selected from these five regional winners.

The regional winnerswill each receive 2,500 ($4292.77 Cdn) andthe overall winner will receive5,000 ($8585.55Cdn).

The 2021 jury is chaired by South African writerZo Wicomb.

The rest of the jury is comprised of one juror each representing the five Commonwealth regions.A. Igoni Barrett is representing Africa,Khademul Islam is representing Asia,Keith Jarrett is representing Canada and Europe,Diana McCaulayis representingthe Caribbeanand Tina Makeretiis representing the Pacific.

The regional winners will be announced on May 12, 2021, with the overall winner being revealed on June 30, 2021.