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Caribbean writer takes the top prize in Commonwealth Short Story Competition.
In June of 2023 Kwame McPherson became the first Jamaican to be announced as the overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize with his story entitled ‘Ocoee’. This announcement was made by the Commonwealth Foundation, the body who governs and administers this prestigious prize in literature. In addition to the global winner, the foundation made an announcement of the four regional winners but it was McPherson who took home the top prize of 5,000 pound sterling, He edged out 6, 641 participants worldwide to cop the top prize.
The winning story ‘Ocoee’ is set in a town in the state of Florida in the United states of America with the same name where scores of African Amerincans were murdered in a racially motivated attack in 1920. The author in telling his story, intertwines American history with Caribbean folklore to tell the story of a driver on a lonely road to Ocoee who is stopped by the police . As he hears about the terrible history of the town, he also rediscovers a connection with his own past.
McPherson says he was inspired to write ‘a mishmash of African American reality and history and Caribbean folklore’ because he felt that ‘there are so many stories in the African Diaspora experience that are not well known and can be told to open others to that experience.’
The judge representing the Caribbean region, Saint Lucian poet and novelist Mac Donald Dixon says ‘“Ocoee” traverses genres. Although not set in the Caribbean, the food, the flavours, the people, narration, appearances and disappearances are all there and happening in a logical sequence that imbues the short story with life. It is palpable; there is nothing incredulous about it.’
Chair of the judges, Pakistani writer and translator Bilal Tanweer, says: ‘“Ocoee” forces a reckoning with the challenge that confronts all writers in the postcolonial world: how to write about a world that has been destroyed without any traces. Kwame McPherson takes on the extraordinarily difficult challenge of writing about a past that has left no evidence of its existence. ‘Ocoee’’s accomplishment is how it achieves this thorny task with simplicity, humility, and real heart. It is a story that resonates deeply and leaves us with a glimpse of all the ghosts that continue to haunt the present, and, in the process, performs one of the most essential tasks of writing: to bear witness to our condition, and to remind us, again, what it means to be human.’
Dr Anne T. Gallagher AO, Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, the intergovernmental organisation that administers the prize, welcomed “a beautiful, painful tale; a story that, once again, reminds us of the many and varied histories that have shaped our modern Commonwealth.”
McPherson, who lives in Kingston, Jamaica, and names Stephen King as one of his favourite writers, says: "When I began my writing journey, it was not a conscious decision, it was just something I enjoyed doing.
Creating and imagining worlds, sharing occurrences and experiences that brought no end of joy in seeing a reader engage and find pleasure in what I have produced. Having the ability to provoke thought, interest, or move a reader from one mental and emotional state to the next, is a skill within itself and one I have been blessedly bestowed with and do not take for granted."
"The culmination of that ability is where I am today, winning a prestigious award, not only for the Caribbean but for the entire Commonwealth. That is no mean feat. I am humbled since I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, especially those scribes, griots and storytellers of our story, fulfilling a purpose I now live, walk and breathe. I am extremely proud I have represented my many friends, family and, importantly, my country Jamaica, in the way that I have."
McPherson is a past student of London Metropolitan University and the University of Westminster. He is a 2007 Poetic Soul winner and was the first Jamaican Flash Fiction Bursary Awardee for The Bridport Prize: International Creative Writing Competition in 2020. He is the author of many books including, The Heart of a Black Man, The Love Poems, My Date With Depression, Our Eternal Legacy, Deep Roots Strong Tree and 7 Tips for the virgin Entrepreneur.