Two Bahamians have made the short list of 19 writers vying for the noted Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2013.
The prize, awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000 - 5,000 words), is part of an initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation called the Commonwealth Writers, which seeks to unearth, develop and promote the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth.
Bahamians A.L. Major, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, and writer Janice Lynn are competing with writers from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, India, Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Australia and Canada for the top prize.
Regional winners receive 1,000 pounds and the overall winner receives 5,000 pounds.
Lynn told Guardian Arts&Culture she's "really, really" excited to have been shortlisted.
"Some really well-respected authors have won or been shortlisted for Commonwealth competitions: Olive Senior, V.S. Naipaul, Aminatta Forna, Zadie Smith, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood, Vikram Seth and so many others," Lynn notes.
Lynn's story, "Mango Summer", was written a few years ago. She wrote the first draft a couple of years after a number of boys went missing in Grand Bahama.
Lynn says she remembers it being a terrifying time.
"I couldn't get the events of that time out of my head. "'Mango Summer' is by no means a retelling of that series of tragedies, but it deals with the horror and senselessness and loss of missing children, and is told from a little girl's perspective," she says.
"I wish I could say that it's lost relevance with time but with horrific crimes like what happened to Marco Archer in 2011, it's not."
Lynn, who has been writing since she was six-years-old after her mother encouraged her to keep a diary, decided to enter the competition in hopes of advancing her career as a full-time writer. Lynn also made the short list for the 2012 short story competition. If she wins this year, apart from screaming herself hoarse with delight, she will use the accomplishment to help establish herself as a writer.
Lynn says her inspiration to write comes from a desire to "write our truths as a nation".
"So much of the public narrative -- especially on the international scale -- about The Bahamas centers on the idea of paradise and perfection. Almost every time I mention to a non-Bahamian that I'm from The Bahamas, their eyes glaze over and exclaim what a wonderful, glorious, trouble-free place it must be. I love The Bahamas, I really love my home, but it's obviously no utopia, and this myth of perfection and paradise galls me," she says.
"I'm inspired to write against that, to write my truth and to try to write our truths as a nation. Often that involves trying to expose and examine social ills -- crimes, murders, violence, prejudices, self hatreds -- by presenting them through the eyes of everyday people. I try to tell stories that are whispered about, or that might get forgotten, but shouldn't be."
Another Bahamian writer who made the shortlist is A.L. Major. Her story, "Antonya's Baby Shower on Camperdown Road", follows a Bahamian woman who reluctantly takes care of a young Haitian illegal immigrant, whose family drowned when a boat taking them to Florida capsized.
"Last summer, I read Edwidge Danticat's short story 'Children of the Sea', in which Danticat writes, 'They treat Haitians like dogs in The Bahamas, a woman says. To them we are not human. Even though their music sounds like ours. Their people look like ours.'
"I remember feeling great shame reading those works because I knew there was a sliver of truth in that statement," Major tells Guardian Arts&Culture.
Major says she wrote and submitted the story as a response to "Children of the Sea", as a way to further examine, justly, the tensions between Bahamian citizens and illegal Haitian immigrants as both groups struggle to hold onto their humanity.
"Antonya's Baby Shower on Camperdown Road" questions the readers notions of nationhood and the imaginary borders we use to separate ourselves from others, she adds.
Major says she is inspired by the Bahamian people. "We are deeply complex, deeply proud, deeply beautiful, human and incorrigible in all the ways necessary for great fiction.
"Even though I'm abroad attending school, I read The Nassau Guardian, The Tribune and other news outlets online. I'm also often inspired by other writers. Winston Saunders' 'You Can Lead a Horse to Water' was the first work I read that made me believe I could be a writer," says Major.
Major says she is thrilled and honored to have made the short list. "It is a special and wonderful moment at any point in a writer's career when your writing is acknowledged by talented, successful authors who, in choosing your work, have agreed publicly that you have written and labored (sentence-by-sentence) over prose other people should read."
And while she has known about the Commonwealth Foundation's dedication to Commonwealth writers and artists for some time, it was her sister who sent her the link to the submission page online.
"I didn't imagine the outcome. I submitted really because I figured, at the very least, my words would be read and considered by prominent literary authors."
Writing has been a lifelong passion for Major, who says she still has stories she wrote when she was seven years old.
Win or lose, in May, Major will receive her MFA in Creative Writing. She has also been awarded a post-graduate Zell Fellowship, and with her free time she will continue to work on her novel "Dismantle The Sun", which is set in The Bahamas, New York and London.

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