Jamaica author in line for Commonwealth Award
Article by
May 12, 2021
Jamaican author Roland Watson-Grant has won the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story competition (Caribbean) for his story The Disappearance of Mumma Dell. The Commonwealth Foundation made the announcement today.
The 48-year-old Jamaican author beat off competition from a strong field of shortlisted entrants including fellow Jamaican Sharma Taylor, Heather Barker from Barbados and Andre Bagoo and Rashad Hosein from Trinidad and Tobago to become the Caribbean winner. He will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on June 30.
In Watson-Grant’s story, a matriarch’s funeral gets derailed just before her body goes missing, causing panic in a rural Jamaican district that is itself in danger of vanishing from the map.