By Janine Mendes-Franco
Originally published on GlobalVoices.org
On June 25, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize hosted its annual online reveal of its overall winner, from among the five regional winners: from Uganda, Joshua Lubwama’s “Mothers Not Appearing In Search” representing Africa; from Bangladesh, Faria Basher’s “An Eye and a Leg” emerging as the Asia winner; Chanel Sutherland’s “Descend” representing the Commonwealth regions of Canada and Europe; Guyana’s Subraj Singh flying the flag for the Caribbean with “Margot’s Run”; and Australia’s Kathleen Ridgwell repping the Pacific region with her story “Crab Sticks and Lobster Rolls.”
The 2025 prize attracted a record-breaking 7,920 entrants from all parts of the Commonwealth, from which 201 were longlisted and 25 made the shortlist. Chair of the judges, award-winning writer and filmmaker, Vilsoni Hereniko, acknowledged how the stories from each of the regional winners “illuminate many aspects of human nature and demonstrate true mastery of the short story form.” Explaining that fiction is “inseparable from the local culture and history from which they have sprung,” he also noted that “geography matters in storytelling.”
As a cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize has helped jump-start the literary careers of many writers, elevating their voices so that their ideas and work can have a broader impact. More often than not, the creativity expressed in the submissions stirs debate on pressing social issues and helps others to better understand them from another perspective.
Opening the live event with a stirring preamble that recognised storytelling as “the foundation of every other art form,” Rwandan presenter Malaika Uwamahoro noted that “while we’re all familiar with consuming it effortlessly, crafting stories with clarity, emotional power, reaching and relating to audiences worldwide, that’s actually one of the most difficult things to do.”
Caribbean literature lovers were undoubtedly hoping that Singh’s story about a new mother “venturing into the night to protect her child from a bloodthirsty creature” would bring home the overall prize, but as it turned out, the winner was Chanel Sutherland, for her powerful tale of what happens as a slave ship sinks. The Caribbean was still represented, however: Sutherland currently resides in Montreal, but is originally from St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Her winning entry, set in the hold of a slave ship where the kidnapped Africans are wounded, exhausted and in chains, explores how they manage to reclaim their identity by sharing their stories as they figure out how to survive. Hereniko called it an allegorical “masterpiece,” while Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation Anne T. Gallagher admired how Sutherland “handles the weight of history with precision and imagination. This is exactly the level of craft and originality the Commonwealth Short Story Prize exists to celebrate.”
Growing up in the Caribbean, Sutherland says, imbued her with a love for storytelling. Describing the grandmother who raised her as her “favourite storyteller” because of her ability to spin tales that were both funny and wise, Sutherland wanted to grow up to emulate her. It was only when she moved to Canada as a teen, however, and happened across Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,”, that she fell in love with writing: “I realised that there were stories out there that were very similar to my own, and from there, there was just this need to start writing down stories that I had like, in me, since I was six […] seven years old.”
For her, she explained, writing, which she tries to do every day, goes well beyond just putting words down on paper. She plays with structure when drafting her stories, and credits walking in nature with helping her find inspiration. Her best advice to up-and-coming writers? “Write the stories that move you,” she says. “If you don’t care about the story, it doesn’t matter what’s trending – you’re not going to enjoy the process of writing.” Without that enjoyment, she adds, there’s no point: “Write the stories that you want to tell [and] the rest will take care of itself.”
Lubwama, the regional winner for Africa, was curious about how Sutherland was able to so vividly capture the experience of an event rooted in a historical time period she wasn’t part of. For Sutherland, the process was a combination of approaching the work with a “deep respect,” understanding that the sacrifices of her ancestors, over generations, have afforded her a position of both “distance and privilege.” She also strives to find the truths she can get close to in a story, which involves painstaking research: “I think it’s important to write form a place of humility and to not use that past as a spectacle […] I’m writing to learn; I’m writing to tell a certain truth […] an emotional truth that is rooted in the spirit of those who survived.”
Her response when she was told she won the overall prize for 2025? “No way! I did not expect that!” She added that she was grateful and honoured, saying she didn’t think she had it in her “to tell a story that was deserving of this prize […] it’s such a validation.”
She later reflected, “[‘Descend’ is] about the illuminating power of memory. How the telling and listening of stories can remind us of our humanity amidst violence and trauma”:
The characters in my story had their histories and stories forcibly erased. Creating a space for readers to reflect on this was important to me.
I believe writers and storytellers have a responsibility to throw light on the universal truths that unite us — and that stories are the ultimate way of acknowledging the humanity of others.
Sutherland’s debut short story collection will be published in 2026. Submissions for the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize open in September.
