Miss Coelho, English Teacher by Kiran Doshi is part of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist 2019.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an annual award that started in 2012. It’s for short stories written in Bengali, Chinese, English, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish, and in translation into English from any language. According to the website, “the Prize seeks out talented writers and brings stories from new and emerging voices to an international audience. Stories often come from countries with little or no publishing infrastructure and from places that are marked by geographical, geopolitical or economic isolation.”
The panel of judges includes one judge from each of the Commonwealth regions(Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific). They choose five regional winners and one overall winner. The winner will be awarded £5,000 and every regional winner will get £2,500.
This year Kiran Doshi, a retired diplomat and educationist from India made it to the shortlist. Author of the book, Jinnah Often Came to Our House, Doshi is no stranger to writing. He is shortlisted for a short story titled, Miss Coelho, English Teacher.
According to the description, it is “A story of an indomitable teacher running into unexpected difficulties after retirement—and overcoming them her way.”
The winner of the award will be announced later this year.