The editors would like to thank all who participated. The prize winning entries for NAW Short Story Competition 2019 are:
- Belonging by Satish Tiwari
Satish Tiwari was born in Kerala and worked as a journalist for many years. After an early retirement, he spends time working as a freelance blogger.
Belonging is a sympathetic take on a government servant’s early retirement. It explores the trials and tribulations of a middle-class family struggling to eke out a living with few resources.
- Victorious by Namrata Poddar
Namrata Poddar writes fiction, nonfiction, and serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli where she curates a series titled “Race, Power and Storytelling.” Her debut story collection-in-progress, Ladies Special, Homebound, was a finalist for Feminist Press’s 2018 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, and is scheduled to release from Speaking Tiger Books (rights sold for South Asia). She was raised in Mumbai and lives in Huntington Beach, California.
In the manner of an oral immigrant tale, “Victorious” recounts the journey of a Gujarati man, Jeetendra, from India to the USA, the hardships he faces in his pursuit of the “American dream” as well as an easier family dynamic to eventually accept life and family within it as a conflicted, uncertain space, one that is best navigated by staying open to the present moment.
- Grandma’s House by Gitanjali Maria
Gitanjali Maria, resides in India, and loves trying her hand at weaving stories, poems, and essays in the time that she does not spend doing market research studies for a global IT firm. She has been published in websites, newspapers, and anthologies such as eFiction India issues, The New Indian Express, ‘Have a Safe Journey’, etc.
After many years, Manu reaches his maternal ancestral home, where he once spent a good amount of his childhood. But what has brought him here this time is not ‘summer’ holidays or the idea of a get together with his cousins and relations but the division of the ancestral property. Manu looks on with sadness at how fragile his 90-year-old grandmother his, a lady whom he once admired for her iron hand. He also watches in surprise at how uncles and aunts have changed and shown their true colors when there is the smell of money in the air.