London, Jun 27 : Sanjana Thakur, a 26-year-old writer from Mumbai, beat competition from over 7,359 entrants worldwide to be named the winner of the GBP 5,000 Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2024 in London on Thursday. Sanjana’s story entitled ‘Aishwarya Rai’ takes its name from the famed Bollywood actress to reimagine and reverse the traditional adoption story. The literary magazine ‘Granta’ has published all the regional winning stories of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
“I cannot express how wholly honoured I am to be the recipient of this incredible prize. I hope I continue writing stories that people want to read,” said Thakur. “For my strange story — about mothers and daughters, about bodies, beauty standards, and Bombay street food — to find such a global audience is thrilling.
Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said. “I’ve spent 10 out of 26 years living in countries not my own. India, where I’m from, is simultaneously strange and familiar, accepting and rejecting.
Writing stories is a way for me to accept that Mumbai is a city I will long for even when I am in it; it is a way to remake ‘place’ in my mind,” she added. Her story revolves around a young woman, Avni, who chooses between possible mothers housed in a local shelter. The first mother is too clean; the second, who looks like the real-life Aishwarya Rai, is too pretty.
In her small Mumbai apartment with too-thin walls and a too-small balcony, Avni watches laundry tu.
