Pictured: author and journalist Kanya D’Almeida, Image courtesy of Google Images

Sri Lankan author Kanya D’Almeida bags the best Short Story prize at a competition organized by the Global Commonwealth Foundation 2021.

Kanya D’Almeida, Sri Lankan author, writer and journalist achieved global recognition for her short story “I cleaned the-” on the 30th June by the Global Commonwealth Foundation as she received the price for best Short Story. The story deals with themes of abandonment, domestic labor, romance behind bathroom doors and human waste.
Almeida was announced as the winner at an online ceremony where readings from Zambian author Mubanga Kalimamukwento, Sri Lankan actress Ranmali Mirchandani, British actress Lyndsey Marshal, Jamaican author Kei Miller and Australian actress Francesca Savige. The judging panel comprised of judges from the five areas of the commonwealth led by the South African writer Zoë Wicomb. Nigerian writer A. Igoni Barrett; Bangladeshi writer, translator and editor Khademul Islam; British poet and fiction writer Keith Jarrett; Jamaican environmental activist, award-winning writer and 2012 Caribbean regional winner Diana
McCaulay; and award-winning author and 2016 Pacific regional winner Tina Makereti from New Zealand were the other panelists.
According to Wicomb; “winning story captivated the judges from the outset. In ‘I Cleaned The –’ the short story form is fully exploited. Set in a Sanctuary for the Forsaken, ‘a place for people who have no people,’ it brims with humanity, exploring the themes of love and death in an ingenious structure. In a frame narrative, Ishwan cares for a terminally ill fellow-inmate, and
embedded within it is a story she tells her friend about her previous years of caring for a severely debilitated child. The narration is an accomplished interweaving of the two-time frames in which the stories artfully testify to love in its various forms”.
Almeida holds a MFA in Fiction from the Columbia University’s school of Arts. Her work has been featured in The Bangalore Review.

By Tharumalee Silva.