Ugandan writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi was awarded the Commonwealth Short Story Prize last week.
©Jiri Flogel / Via Shutterstock

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize was awarded last week to Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, a writer from Uganda currently living and teaching at Lancaster University in the UK. Established in 2012 alongside the since-discontinued Commonwealth Book Prize, the award was given out on its own for the first time this year.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is given out each year by the Commonwealth Foundation to a Commonwealth citizen, for a piece of unpublished short fiction ranging from 2,000-5,000 words. The Commonwealth (are you sick of that word yet?) of Nations currently consists of 53 countries, most of which were at one time British colonies; Uganda gained its independence from the UK in 1962.

Alison Flood writes for the Guardian about the prize, which Makumbi won for her entry, “Let’s Tell This Story Properly.” The story follows a Ugandan woman whose husband dies in the bathroom (“The more shame because it was Easter. Who dies naked on Easter?”), and who travels back to Uganda for the funeral, only to discover “a web of deception,” as Flood puts it.

Makumbi was understandably thrilled to win the prize, for which there were nearly 4,000 entries: “It was the usual reaction – first you cry, then you jump, then you cry again, then dance, and then you don’t really know how to react. This is a dream. For Uganda, once described as a literary desert, it shows how the country’s literary landscape is changing and I am proud to be a part of it.” The remark about the “literary desert” goes back to poet Taban lo Liyong, who described eastern Africa that way in the 1960s.  Makumbi further expounded: “It was an unfortunate thing to say. It presumes literature is in English, and is the novel, whereas Uganda has had a thriving drama scene in [local] languages, which is what has kept it going when writers have gone into exile.”

The judges praised Makumbi’s work for its “risk-taking, grace and breadth;” the prize comes with a £5,000 award. Makumbi also won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013 for her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, which will be published this summer as Kintu.