The Kavya Prize New Writers Award - shortlist announced
Published: 26 October 2023
The shortlist for the Kavya Prize 2023 – which seeks to recognise and encourage the literary achievement of Scottish writers of colour – has been announced today.
The shortlist for the Kavya Prize 2023 – which seeks to recognise and encourage the literary achievement of Scottish writers of colour – has been announced today.
For 2023, the prize is focused on new writers, giving a platform to new and unpublished prose writing, whether fiction or creative non-fiction.
The inaugural prize in 2022, celebrated published works of fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, script or short story collections.
The shortlist for the The Kavya New Writers Award 2023 is:
- Amira Al Shanti – The Witch of Womanhood (Short Story)
- Samia Chandraker – Minerva Street (Short Story)
- Samina Chaudry – Belonging Neither to These nor Those (Novel Excerpt)
- Josephine Chun Rui Jay – Laowai (Novel Excerpt)
- Yasmin Hanif – The Bear with No Name (Children’s Story)
- Q Manivannan – The Physics of It (Non-Fiction Excerpt)
- Theresa Muñoz – Hummingbird (Non-Fiction Essay)
- Tae Song – 1986 (Novel Excerpt)
- Jinling Wu – Cocoon (Short Story Collection)
- Alexandra Ye – This Story (Short Story)
The Kavya Prize, in association with the University of Glasgow, was founded by the Indian-born Scottish author Leela Soma, seeks to recognise, and encourage writers of colour who are Scottish by birth, residence or formation. The prize is also supported by Aye Write, Glasgow’s Book Festival.
Leela Soma died in December 2022 but it is now hoped The Kavya Prize will be a legacy of her passionate advocacy and support of writers of colour.
Zoë Strachan from the Creative Writing Programme at University of Glasgow said: “We are thrilled by the imagination and promise of the shortlisted writers, many of whom we expect to hear a lot more from in the future. Leela was passionate about encouraging new writers, and she would have loved to see the prize celebrating these exciting new voices in Scottish writing.”
The winner of The Kavya New Writers Award will receive £500 and the option of a residency at Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Writing Centre, in association with Scottish Book Trust. The winner will be announced on Thursday 16 November during Book Week Scotland.
The inaugural prize last year was won by playwright Uma Nada-Rajah for Toy, Plastic Chicken! published by Salamander Street.
Uma Nada-Rajah is one of the judges for the new writers’ award, alongside novelist Tendai Huchu and agent Caro Clarke from Portobello Literary.
Kavya is a popular and well recognised word in Sanskrit and refers to a literary style or a completed body of literature that was used in Indian courts of the Maharajahs who nurtured the cultural arts in India.
First published: 26 October 2023