Regional Winner (Asia) for 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, “The Last Diver on Earth” is now live on Granta: <https://granta.com/the-last-diver-on-earth/>.
It tells the story of a young free diver, Rumi, as she retraces her mother’s final dive off the coast of the Lesser Sunda Islands, hoping to uncover the mystery of her mother’s death. Although the story is set in the climate-ravaged future of 2210, it speaks of environmental horrors, of underwater rivers of plastic and deadzones devoid of even the memory of life already threatening the world today. Yet neither Rumi nor humanity dares lose hope for even the smallest of voices, of existences can dream of change.
This story, alongside other regional winners, will soon be available on hardcopy: <https://paperand.ink/> after the announcement of the overall winner for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize on 21st June: <https://www.commonwealthwriters.org/cwprize/>.
Images courtesy of Pexel artists: Elaine Dipp, cottonbro & Harry Cooke.