Sri Lankan author wins 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Thirty-four-year-old Kanya D’almeida has been announced as the overall winner of the world’s most global literature prize.
The Commonwealth Foundation announced D’almeida’s win in an online award ceremony on June 30 which featured readings from Zambian author Mubanga Kalimamukwento, Sri Lankan actress Ranmali Mirchandani, British actress Lyndsey Marshal, Jamaican author Kei Miller and Australian actress Francesca Savige. D’almeida was selected from a previously announced shortlist of five regional winners which included:
Africa: Granddaughter of
The Octopus by Rémy Ngamije (Namibia)
Canada and Europe: Turnstones by Carol Farrelly (UK)
Caribbean: The Disappearance of Mumma Dell by Roland Watsongrant (Jamaica)
Pacific: Fertile Soil by Katerina Gibson (Australia)
D’almeida, from Colombo, Sri Lanka, was named the winner by British-jamaican actress Dona Croll, who presented the online ceremony. D’almeida is the first
Sri Lankan to win the overall prize and the second to win for the Asia region.
D’almeida’s winning story,
I Cleaned The —, is a story about ‘dirty work’: domestic labour, abandonment, romantic encounters behind bathroom doors, and human waste. The
Asia judge, Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam described it as “a lifeaffirming story of love among the rambutan and clove trees of Sri Lanka — love for a baby not one’s 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”.
An extract from the story was read at the ceremony by Sri Lankan actress and arts professional Ranmali Mirchandani.
Chair of the Judges Zoë Wicomb said: “Congratulations to Kanya D’almeida, whose winning story captivated the judges from the outset. In I Cleaned The–– the short story form is fully exploited. Set in a Sanctuary for the Forsaken, “a place for people who have no people”, it brims with humanity, exploring the themes of love and death in an ingenious structure. In a frame narrative, Ishwan cares for a terminally ill fellow-inmate, and embedded within it is a story she tells her friend about her previous years of caring for a severely debilitated child. The narration is an accomplished interweaving of the two-time frames in which the stories artfully testify to love in its various forms. For all its scatology, its depiction of the unsavoury body in decline, I Cleaned The— deals in delicacy and the forbearance that love bestows. With a title that speaks of the unspoken and the unutterable, as well as attempts by the poor and overlooked to voice their feelings, D’almeida appeals to both the heart and the mind of the reader in this portrayal of unspeakable injustice.’
For her part, D’almeida said, ‘Winning the Commonwealth Short Story prize during this moment of global upheaval feels like a tremendous honour and an equally tremendous responsibility. It makes me question what it means to be a writer in these times, times when the human imagination might offer us our best shot at survival. I’ve long felt that fiction is the last ‘free’ place on earth in which to fully envision (and execute!) radical alternatives to the often dismal systems that govern us. To have won the prize for a story about two destitute, ageing women in Sri Lanka digging through the debris of their lives in search of a little dignity is more than a blessing — it’s a firm order from the universe to keep inventing ways for the powerless to gather together, giggle together, and win.’
D’almeida’s fiction has appeared in Jaggery and The Bangalore Review. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She’s working on a book of short stories about women suffering from mental illness.
The five regional winners’ stories were 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.
The Commonwealth Foundation has also announced a new threeyear partnership with The London Library, which includes the offer of a year’s full membership to the five regional winners and two years’ full membership to the overall winner.
Now in its 10th year, the prize has developed a strong reputation for discovering new writers and bringing them to a global audience. Nominations have helped many new writers find publishers and agents.