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Indian writer Sanjana Thakur won the overall 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for “Aishwarya Rai,” a story that had already taken the Asia regional award. The Commonwealth Foundation said the competition attracted 7,359 entries worldwide and awarded Thakur £5,000.
Who won the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize?
Sanjana Thakur, a writer from Mumbai, India, received the overall prize for “Aishwarya Rai.” At the time, she was 26. The Commonwealth Foundation said the 7,359 entries set a record for the prize at that point; that is a 2024 figure, not a claim about the competition’s current record.
The ceremony took place online and was presented by Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh, New Zealand’s former Poet Laureate. The overall award was £5,000. Each of the five regional winners received £2,500, according to the Foundation’s 2024 prize archive.
What is “Aishwarya Rai” about?
The story takes its title from Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai and reworks the familiar adoption story. Its protagonist, Avni, tries out possible mothers from a local shelter, judging them against ideas of cleanliness and beauty. The Foundation’s synopsis places Avni in a small Mumbai apartment and identifies mothers and daughters, bodies, beauty standards, and Bombay street food among the story’s concerns. That outline is a guide to the premise, not a substitute for reading the story.
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Thakur described it as a Mumbai story about mothers and daughters, bodies, sexuality, and coming of age, saying it “leans into strangeness and absurdity.” Judging-panel chair Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi praised its “brutal irony, sarcasm, cynicism and wry humour,” and said the story confronts the fracturing of family and self amid modern urban life. Asia-region judge O Thiam Chin described its power as fiction that “peels back the hard skin of life.” These are the author’s and judges’ characterizations, rather than neutral descriptions of the story.
Who were the other regional winners?
The five regional winners represented Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Thakur’s story won Asia before being selected for the overall award.
Rank #2
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| Region | Winner | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Africa | Reena Usha Rungoo | Mauritius |
| Asia | Sanjana Thakur | India |
| Canada and Europe | Julie Bouchard | Canada |
| Caribbean | Portia Subran | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Pacific | Pip Robertson | New Zealand |
The Foundation described the five winning stories as taking readers from Trinidad to New Zealand, via northern Canada, Mumbai, and Mauritius. Their subjects varied across family relationships, love and loss, and other distinct themes.
How large was the 2024 competition?
The Foundation reported 7,359 entries worldwide, with 23 writers shortlisted from 13 Commonwealth countries. It called the entry count the highest in the prize’s history at the time. The Foundation said the shortlisted stories addressed subjects including family and parent-child relationships, love and loss, music, football, art, film, rural electrification, and tea; nearly a quarter were speculative fiction. These figures and descriptions refer to the 2024 competition.
Rank #3
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Where can you read “Aishwarya Rai”?
Granta published the regional winning stories online. Its page identifies “Aishwarya Rai” as the 2024 Asia-winning entry, providing a direct route to the story: read “Aishwarya Rai” at Granta.
The Foundation also said the five stories were available in a special print collection from Paper + Ink. Its archive does not establish whether that collection is currently in stock or provide current edition or retailer details.
Rank #4
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What is known about Thakur’s writing background?
The Foundation’s 2024 biography says Thakur is from Mumbai, holds a degree in English and Anthropology from Wellesley College, and was pursuing an MFA in Fiction at UT Austin’s New Writers Project at the time. It also notes that her story “Backstroke” appeared in The Southampton Review. Those are details recorded in the prize archive, not confirmation of her present affiliation.
Thakur has described India as “simultaneously strange and familiar, accepting and rejecting.” She said writing stories is a way to accept that Mumbai is a city she will long for even while she is in it.
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