Three Indian writers make the Asian shortlist for the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize has selected 25 writers from 14 countries for this year’s shortlist. Five regional winners, each representing one Commonwealth region, will be announced on May 13 and the overall winner, in late June.

The Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 member countries. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Short stories translated into English from other languages are also eligible and in addition to English, entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Malay, Maltese, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil, and Turkish. The winning stories are published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink.

Three Indian writers feature on this year’s seven-strong Asian shortlist alongside writers from Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore: Sharon Aruparayil, Rafaa Dalvi, and Rupsa Dey. Also on the shortlist for Asia are two writers from Bangladesh: Anmona Manishita and Shazed Ul Hoq Abir.

Three writers – Celeste Mohammed, Cosmata Lindie and Ola W Halim – return to the shortlist, while the remaining writers appear for the first time. John Edward DeMicoli makes history as the first Maltese writer to be shortlisted. Stories originally written in Bengali and Malay have also been selected alongside those written in English.

The shortlisted stories span a wide range of subjects, from intimate family relationships and love stories to experiences of migration, natural disaster and the human cost of war. Told through a vivid and varied cast of protagonists – including musicians, athletes, migrant workers and even a stray dog – they move across continents and between rural and urban worlds. Across these settings, the stories explore themes of bereavement, forbidden love, displacement and memory, while reflecting on identity, resilience and the enduring search for belonging.

Chair of the Judges, British novelist and dramatist Louise Doughty, said, ‘[…] Our choices for the shortlist came down to authors who were not only excellent writers but, we felt, also had a grasp on the unique pleasures of the short story form, how it is a miniature carved in words that holds all the potential of a full-length novel in a few dense brushstrokes…’

Five judges drawn from the five regions of the Commonwealth, joined Louise Doughty on the panel. They are: South African journalist, author and short story writer Fred Khumalo (Africa); Bangladeshi writer, translator and essayist Rifat Munim Dip (Asia); Padlei Inuk Canadian poet, novelist and scholar Norma Dunning (Canada and Europe); short story writer, novelist and lawyer Sharma Taylor from Jamaica (Caribbean); and poet, illustrator and author Maxine Beneba Clarke from Australia (Pacific).

Here is the 2026 shortlist in full:

Africa

“Arewa Girls” by Hussani Abdulrahim (Nigeria)
“New Things” by Oluwatoke Adejoye (Nigeria)
“Orchard of Blackbirds” by Lois Akoma Antwi (Ghana)
“Shock Me I Shock You” by Ola W Halim (Nigeria)
“The God Under the Bed by Dawn Immanuel (Nigeria)
“Me and Ma’am” by Lisa-Anne Julien (South Africa)
“The Runner's Gift” by Ken Odak Odumbe (Kenya)

Asia

“Mehendi Nights’ by Sharon Aruparayil (India)
“The Miles Between Us” by Jacqueline Chang (Singapore)
“Thirty-One Steps” by Rafaa Dalvi (India)
“Fighting Elsewhere” by Rupsa Dey (India)
“A Masculine Fest” by Anmana Manishita (Bangladesh)
“The Missing Half” (“Separuh Yang Hilang”) by Mohamed Nasser Mohamed (Malaysia) translated from Malay by Pauline Fan
“No Spark in Mafiz’s Relationship” (“Mofiz-er Relation e Spark Nai”) by Shazed Ul Hoq Abir (Bangladesh) translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha and Shabnam Nadiya