Master of Business Administration (MBA) alumnus Kwame McPherson’s short story Ocoee has won the Caribbean category of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2023.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually to the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. For the 2023 prize, over 6600 short stories were submitted across all five of the Commonwealth regions in 11 languages. Five regional awards are decided by the international judging panel which is comprised of five diverse writers, artists and editors.
Kwame’s short story Ocoee was selected by the judges for the Caribbean regional award. Ocoee is described as a “mishmash of African American reality and history, and Caribbean folklore”, drawing on the breadth and depth of stories across the African diaspora.
Kwame grew up in Jamaica before migrating to London, where he completed his MBA in Business Administration and Management at the University of Westminster. Kwame credits his time at Westminster as crucial to his success in the literary field.
Speaking about the award, Kwame said: “'I am immensely proud as a past University of Westminster student to have achieved this prestigious award, especially for the Caribbean region. The University equipped me with invaluable time management and organisational skills and provided an expansive world view now present in my writing, making it easier for the reader to understand and enjoy international issues. I am extremely grateful for the time and experience I had when I attended many moons ago!”
Prior to his success in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Kwame was a 2007 Poetic Soul winner and the first Jamaican Flash Fiction Bursary Awardee for The Bridport Prize in 2020. His work has been published in Flame Tree Publishing’s diverse-writing anthologies and is to be published in the forthcoming in The Heart of a Black Man anthology, which tells personal empowering stories from influential Black men.
Commenting on the importance and influence of stories such as Ocoee, Kwame said: “Stories make up the tapestry of our everyday lives. They are created, nurtured, displayed and demonstrated on television, social media, our phones, in movies and newspapers, and, importantly, in our own minds. They manifest in how individuals, families, communities and the wider society interact and relate. And then, like a pot of delicious manish water soup, they are mixed into the entire world's own story to be read, uplifted and absorbed. Stories can be for good or bad. They can provoke or generate thought. They can instil fear or empower and motivate but there is no denying that when used in the right way, stories can make our lives richer - those ones gone before and those yet to come.”
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