Kwame McPherson, Jamaican storyteller and writer, has been named the overall winner of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His winning story, “Ocoee,” is based upon historical events, taking its name from the Florida town that was the site of a horrible racially motivated attack in 1920.

The announcement was made at an online ceremony today (June 27) by journalist, Dionne Jackson Miller, during which McPherson and the other regional winners discussed their writing and read short extracts from their stories.

It was the seventh time that McPherson had entered the prestigious literary competition. This year, however, he scored a first for Jamaica by first being chosen as the regional winner to then being announced as the overall winner.

McPherson was one of five regional winners of what the Commonwealth Foundation calls “the world’s most global literary prize,” which received over 6,600 entries from Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe, and the Pacific.

Moved to tears, McPherson was overwhelmed with emotion and almost speechless.

He said: “I’m a writer, and I’m stumped for words,” describing the achievement as being “surreal”.

“I am humbled since I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, especially those scribes, griots and storytellers of our story, fulfilling a purpose I now live, walk and breathe. I am extremely proud I have represented my many friends, family and, importantly, my country Jamaica, in the way that I have,” he said.

‘Ocoee’ has been described by the Commonwealth Foundation as “an interweaving of African American reality and history, and Caribbean folklore.”

Competition judges praised the story as “a simple tale retold in a surreal atmosphere of creative uneasiness. Images awake in the subconscious and, without pointing fingers, remind us of man’s inhumanity to man.”

When he was announced as the regional winner, McPherson said that he was inspired to, “do a mishmash of African American reality, history, and Caribbean folklore, because I feel that there are so many stories in the African Diaspora experience that are not well known and can be told to open others to that experience. For instance, Ocoee was a real town in Florida where, in November 1920, numerous African Americans were massacred by a white mob. I also sought to show the Caribbean connection by touching on a supernatural folklore, played out in the story.”

The 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner, who was born in the UK and now lives in Kingston, Jamaica, says Stephen King is one of his favourite writers. He is past student at London Metropolitan University and University of Westminster and a 2007 Poetic Soul winner. He was the first Jamaican Flash Fiction Bursary Awardee for The Bridport Prize: International Creative Writing Competition in 2020. He is also a recent and successful contributor to Flame Tree Publishing’s (UK) diverse-writing anthologies and a contributor to ‘The Heart of a Black Man’ anthology to be published in Los Angeles. It tells personal, inspiring, uplifting, and empowering stories from influential and powerful Black men.

This year’s five winning stories are published in the Granta literary magazine.

Besides McPherson, Asia winner, Agnes Chew (Singapore), Canada and Europe winner Rue Baldry (United Kingdom), who has just written her first novel; Africa winner, 20-year-old undergraduate student Hana Gamon (South Africa), and the Pacific winner, whose daytime job is family doctor, Himali McInnes (New Zealand) may be found in the Granta.

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