2009 judges
The winning stories were selected from over 4,000 entries from almost all countries of the Commonwealth. The choice of stories was made on the basis of merit, originality and voice by an international panel of judges.
Craig Boyko
Craig Boyko is a Canadian short story writer. His first book of short stories, Blackouts, was published in 2008. His stories have been nominated for the prestigious Journey Prize four times and published in many of Canada's best literary magazines, including Grain Magazine, The Malahat Review, PRISM International, Descant, and The New Quarterly. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Boyko received degrees in English and Psychology from the University of Calgary. He now lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Dr Vibha Chauhan
Dr Vibha S. Chauhan is Associate Professor at the Department of English, Zakir Husain College, University of Delhi, India. Her major research interests include studies in literature, culture and society of non-urban and provincial societies in India and other parts of the world. She has published several articles in national and international journals and written, edited and translated books like Ganga Jamuna Beech, a novel in Hindi, Maa Siddeshwari, the biography of the renowned singer, Beyond Black Waters and Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Plurality and Literary Traditions in India, a textbook for University of Delhi. Her monograph Gods People Make has been housed in Victoria Memorial Library, London.
Jolisa Gracewood
Jolisa Gracewood is a New Zealand writer, teacher, and reviewer based in New Haven, Connecticut. She reviews regularly for the New Zealand Listener and the New Haven Advocate, and has won awards for her book reviews, including Reviewer of the Year at the New Zealand Book Awards (2006). She has also published academic articles, literary anthologies for learners of Japanese, and literary translations; her short story Dead Letters was made into a short film that has screened at international film festivals. She holds an MA in Japanese Literature from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Cornell University (USA), and has taught non-fiction writing at Yale University.
Dr Eddie Iroh
Dr Eddie Albert Okechukwu Iroh is a multi-media specialist, broadcast administrator, motivational speaker and author of five novels. He is widely travelled and has won over 50 national and international awards, including honours from the Commonwealth Broadcast Association, London, and he is an Officer of the Order of the Niger from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Educated in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, he was Controller of Programmes in the Nigerian Television Authority, Managing Editor of The Guardian newspaper, and more recently Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Africa's largest radio broadcasting network and President of the Union of African Broadcasters.
Nicholas Laughlin
Nicholas Laughlin is the writer and editor of The Caribbean Review of Books. He was born and educated in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the former editor of the arts and culture magazine Caribbean Beat. He has written many reviews and essays and his poems and short fiction have been published in a number of periodicals including the Boston Review (USA) and Poetry Review (UK). He is working on a book-length travel/cultural history narrative about Guyana provisionally entitled Imaginary Roads. He has written pieces about contemporary visual arts and is a member of the advisory board for Alice Yard, a new contemporary arts space in Port of Spain.
