and the earth drank deep & Other Stories

This collection is titled after the overall winning entry by Eswatini’s Ntsika Kota – a tense, frightening portrait of a killer. A young hunter in a rural village ruthlessly plots his rise; fascinated by the moment of death, whether of beast or human, he is alert to every gesture, every opportunity …

The other winning stories – by Sofia Mariah Ma (Singapore), Cecil Browne (England), Diana McCaulay (Jamaica) and Mary Rokonadravu (Fiji) – feature climate change-wracked oceans, a child of escaped slaves turned detective and struggling communities where harsh realities force good people into bad decisions.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is a prestigious annual award for the best work of unpublished short fiction from within the Commonwealth. Managed by the Commonwealth Foundation, it was set up to inspire, develop and connect writers and storytellers across the five global regions.