Jamaican writer wins Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Caribbean

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June 04, 2020

Celebrated Jamaican author and theatre director Brian Heap, emerging as the Caribbean winner of the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Heap expressed shock as he initially planned to use the competition as a spark to complete a work he had been fiddling with for five years.

Heap’s winning piece, Mafootoo, documents the encounters of a Jamaican woman who migrated to London with her husband in the 1960s.

Heap, who grew up in England, explains, “The story starts with her actually waiting for a taxi to take her somewhere.

Heap went up against fellow Jamaican Sharma Taylor and Brandon McIvor from Trinidad and Tobago to secure the Caribbean prize.