Commonwealth Writers

Commonwealth Book Prize Regional Winners 2013 { read more }

Commonwealth Short Story Prize Regional Winners 2013 { read more }

New resource for writers and publishers in the Caribbean to launch at the Bocas Lit Fest { read more }

Oxford Bookstore New Delhi - Commonwealth Book Prize Event { read more }

Commonwealth Book Prize - 2013 shortlist { read more }

Commonwealth Short Story Prize - 2013 shortlist { read more }

Online Residencies - Angella Emurwon and Janet Morrison { read more }

Commonwealth Shorts launched in New Zealand { read more }

Culture & Conflict { read more }

Featured Inspiration

Where are they now? 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winners

In partnership with Commonwealth Writers, last year for the first time Granta Magazine published online the five regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize from Africa, Asia, Canada & Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific respectively. Ahead of the announcement of this year’s prizes at the Hay Festival in the final week of May, Granta caught up with the writers from the [...]

Post Three: Cut! Cut! Cut!

By Janet Morrison It’s funny how extraordinary events happen when you’re doing the most ordinary of things. I got the call from the BBC about having won the prize while I was about to enter a wholesale outlet for upholstery material. At the same time there was a delivery truck with workmen spraying Jamaican expletives [...]

The Burt Award for Caribbean Literature (23-8-2013)

An exciting global initiative in Young Adult literature is coming to the Caribbean. Established by CODE with the support of Canadian philanthropist William (Bill) Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation, in partnership with the Bocas Lit Fest, the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature was launched on April 27, 2013, at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain. The Award will be given annually to three [...]

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Literature is in many ways like faith: it is a leap of imagination. Both reading and writing require an imaginative leap and it is that imaginative leap that enables us to become alive in bodies not our own.

Chimamanda Adichie

Movie buffs in the dark cinema hall are not bothered about which religion, caste and creed the person sitting next to them belongs to. They laugh together at the same jokes, sing the same songs and cry over similar emotional sentiments.

Amitabh Bachchan

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.

Wole Soyinka

The rights to culture include the possibility for each man to obtain the means of developing his personality, through his direct participation in the creation of human values, and of becoming, in this way, responsible for his situation whether local or on a world scale.

UNESCO Statement, Cultural Rights as Human Rights, (1970)

To have a high GNP per head but little music, arts, literature etc would not amount to a major developmental success. In one form or another, culture engulfs our lives, our desires, our frustrations, our ambitions, and the freedoms that we seek. The freedom and opportunity for cultural activities are among the basic freedoms…

Amartya Sen