Alumna Kanya D'Almeida '18 Named Regional Winner for 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Commonwealth Foundation announced today that alumna Kanya D'Almeida '18 is a regional winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story, "I Cleaned The—."

D'Almeida, who hails from Sri Lanka, has been named winner for Asia after rising above stiff competition—a shortlist of 25 stories written by authors from several different countries. 

According to judge Khademul Islam, "Even among Asia’s gratifyingly strong showing in this year’s Commonwealth short fiction sweepstakes, [D'Almeida's] submission stood out. A life-affirming story of love among the rambutan and clove trees of Sri Lanka – love for a baby not one’s own, love for a high-spirited elderly woman. Love found not among the stars but in human excrement. Literally. And all the more glorious for it. Just as class differences are subtly shaded, so too the narrator is aptly, and exquisitely, named Ishwari (Sanskrit for Goddess, with a capital ‘G’). A tale powerfully realized.”

D'Almeida cites her own experience as a new mother as the inspiration for her story. After her son was born, she says, "I was sitting on a rocking chair nursing him and watching the woman I’d hired to cook and clean for me washing his cloth nappies. And a voice in my head asked: Who is this child’s mother, you, or the person cleaning his shit?" 

In a statement about her regional win, D'Almeida said, "Writing in the English language, in a former British colony, means you’re never quite at home in language. All around you a world is unfolding in other tongues; words must either be cramped or elongated to fit circumstances that are decidedly not English; and your characters themselves may be unfamiliar with the language of your own story! That’s why I believe the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is such a haven for writers across the world—it is perhaps the only forum large enough to accommodate the many expressions of language that thrive from region to region. To be in the company of such a diversity of voices, to have my story read by such a diversity of judges, and to see the story emerge as one of the regional winners, is one of the great honours of my life."

D'Almeida's story will now proceed to the final round of judging, and an overall winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize will be announced on June 30th at a virtual awards ceremony. 

Kanya D’Almeida is a Sri Lankan writer. Her fiction has appeared in Jaggery and The Bangalore Review. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She’s working on a book of short stories about mad women. D’Almeida is the host of The Darkest Light, a podcast exploring birth and motherhood in Sri Lanka.