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Guyanese writer Subraj Singh ‘Margot’s Run’ wins 2025 regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Kaieteur News- The Commonwealth Foundation earlier this week announced the five regional winners of the world’s most global literary prize. Guyanese writer Subraj Singh has won the 2025 regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean. The 32-year-old saw off strong competition from three other shortlisted writers, Joanne C. Hillhouse (Antigua and Barbuda), Kellie Magnus (Jamaica) and Jessie Mayers (Saint Lucia).
Singh, who currently lives in Missouri, United States, will go through to the final round of judging and the overall winner will be announced on 25th June.
Margot’s Run’ tells of a young mother who runs from an Ol’ Higue – a supernatural creature found in Caribbean and Guyanese folklore that threatens her young baby
His winning story, ‘Margot’s Run’ tells of a young mother who runs from an Ol’ Higue – a supernatural creature found in Caribbean and Guyanese folklore that threatens her young baby.
Commenting on the background to the story, Singh said “Margot’s Run” is about a creature from Caribbean and Guyanese folklore called “Ol’ Higue”. It focuses on a mother who has to undertake a journey to save her child from this entity.
The story is inspired by my country’s oral traditions, which are reflected in the narrative’s unusual form. It is also about memory, and the post-colonial experience of Guyana, in the way that the protagonist must fight against the supernatural creature that threatens her child, while also warding off the threats posed by the dual spectres of trauma and colonisation that remain firmly ensconced in her mind and in the country’s pre-independence landscape.’
Singh added, ‘this is a story about family—whether biological family or found family—and its role in creating spaces of safety and sustenance in times of great adversity. I am honoured to win the regional prize with a story that aims to be, in so many different ways, authentically Caribbean.’
Guyanese writer, Subraj Singh
The judge representing the Caribbean region, writer, editor and comedian Lisa Allen-Agostini from Trinidad and Tobago commented: ‘“Margot’s Run” is the story of a mother’s breathless dash through the Guyana landscape in an effort to outwit an Ol’ Higue which has been attacking her infant son. Part of Guyana’s folklore, the evil, bloodsucking Ol’ Higue has two vulnerabilities—both of which Margot and her allies exploit to destroy the demon. This action takes place on the night of Guyana’s first Independence Day, just as the white colonists are leaving after exploiting the country and its people for generations. The majority of the story is written in a single sentence which burns as bright as the light of the Ol’ Higue’s fireball. A brilliant work, “Margot’s Run” delivers an action-packed narrative as it lays bare the vampiric nature of the colonial system, using a traditional folk character and evocative writing about the Guyanese landscape to do so.
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