Global first as Kota wins ’22 commonwealth short story prize

Rhodes University alumnus Kota has been announced as the overall winner of the world’s most prestigious global literary prize, beating off competition from 6,729 entrants worldwide to take the £5,000 prize.

Kota is the first writer from Eswatini to win the prize. He is also the first writer from that country to be shortlisted.

Kota’s winning story, ‘and the earth drank deep’ centres around a group of villagers in a hunter-gatherer society set in the ‘distant past of our species’. As they encounter threats from wild animals, disease, and unexpected death, the story tells of a day when ‘cold blood flowed for the first time, and the earth drank deep’. Some aspects of the social hierarchy of the village were very loosely based upon Nguni cultures from southern Africa, Kota says, but the society he depicts is imaginary.

The judge representing the African region, Rwandan publisher Louise Umutoni-Bower, praised it as a story that “uses African folktale in a way that remains true to form but is also accessible.

Dr Anne Gallagher AO, Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, the intergovernmental organisation that administers the prize, says: “Ntsika’s wonderful success is a reminder of what makes the prize unique. It is an opportunity for writers from across the Commonwealth to express themselves, regardless of where they live or their previous writing experience. His success is a reminder of the universality of writing and storytelling!’

Born in Mbabane, Eswatini, Ntsika Kota is a chemist by training, a self-taught writer who was inspired by a high school writing assignment.

Ntsika adds: ‘There are not many literature prizes more global in scale or inclusive in scope than the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. I submitted my story more out of pride than expectation. I was under no illusions about my chances. However, against all odds, my story was shortlisted. I expected no more, although I daydreamed about winning the Prize. I never let myself actually hope to win.’