Two S’pore authors in Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2014 shortlist

SINGAPORE — Two writers from Singapore have made the shortlist for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Yu-Mei Balasingamchow and Sara Adam Ang were among the 19 shortlisted authors — and the only two from Asia — for their respective short fiction pieces, Grandmother and A Day In The Death.

Ang is a recent History major graduate at the National University Of Singapore while Balasingamchow is the co-author of Singapore: A Biography.

The prize is part of Commonwealth Writers, a cultural initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation. The winners from each region — Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific — will be announced on May 14 and the overall winner will be announced on June 13. Regional winners will receive £2,500 while the overall winner gets £5,000.

The Commonwealth Writers counts as a partner literary magazine Granta, which will give the winners the opportunity to have their story published in its online version. The initiative has also recently linked up with London-based literary, film and television agency Blake Friedmann, which will potentially work with writers identified through the contest.

For more information, visit http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/