Innocent Chizaram Ilo has emerged the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize regional winner for Africa.
He son the coveted prize for his short story ‘When a Woman Renounces Motherhood’.
The 23-year-old, Lagos-based writer, is the youngest writer ever to win the Commonwealth regional prize.
Ilo is also a finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award and Short Story Day Africa Prize. His work has been published in Fireside Magazine, Overland, Strange Horizons, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores and Cast of Wonders and has won the Africa YMCA and Oxford Festival of the Arts short story contests.
Speaking about his feat, Ilo revealed that he shared the news first with his mother.
He said: “I still can’t wrap my head around it. You know you always dream of this moment, how you’ll scream from the rooftops and rent your clothes. Then it comes by sudden and the only thing you can do is call your mother and cry over the phone about how proud your father would have been if he was alive. This means so much to me. I feel grateful, honored, proud and humbled, at the same time. This is one of those moments that make me look back at all the late nights and piles of rejection emails and say, “Maybe, just maybe, this writing thing is worth it.”
Chair of the Prize’s panel of judges, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, praised Ilo’s work for its “particularly striking confidence switching between languages” and Ilo’s unapologetic use of interspersed, un-italicized Igbo and pidgin.
The regional prize winner will receive a cash prize of £2,500 and a publication in Granta – a literary magazine of new writing.
The other regional winners include: “The Great Indian Tee and Snakes” by Kritika Pandey (Asia Region), “Wherever Mister Jensen Went” by Reyah Martin (Canada and Europe Region), “Mafootoo” by Brian S. Heap (Caribbean Region) and “The Art of Waving” by Andrea E. Macleod (Pacific Region).
The overall winner will be announced during a special online award ceremony on June 30.
Africa’s Jennifer Makumbi won the overall prize of £5,000 in 2014 for her ‘Let’s Tell This Story Properly.’