Lisa-Anne Julien’s win sits within a broader trajectory of increasing recognition for African writers within global literary institutions.
By Abioye Damilare Samson
South African writer Lisa-Anne Julien has won the Africa regional prize at the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story Me and Ma’am, a portrait of the charged relationship between a domestic worker and her employer, set across the span of a single working day. The win places her among the five regional winners in contention for the overall prize, which will be announced in an online ceremony on 30 June.
Although originally from Trinidad and Tobago, Julien has lived in Johannesburg for twenty-four years, and that dual biography—Caribbean-born, Africa-rooted—runs through the story and her own account of it. “Having grown up in the Caribbean, I was fascinated by an imagined Africa”, she said on winning. “For the last 24 years, I have walked, danced, and cried with citizens of the real Africa. My story is written from this merger”.
Her story, Me and Ma’am, follows a keenly observant domestic worker through her workday, asserting herself among her peers and navigating her employer’s liberal guilt, until an equalising experience dissolves the distance between the two women. The story, Julien has said, grew from her long fascination with the people who come to work in our homes. “These are individuals who occupy an interesting place in our lives, family but not quite, friends but not exactly buddies,” she said. “The relationship can be terminated at a moment’s notice, leaving one to wonder what was real”.
Judging for the Africa region, South African journalist and author Fred Khumalo described it as a richly complex story that distinguished itself through a combination of humour, serious introspection, and a deep sense of shared humanity. He noted that where most South African class narratives are framed through race, Julien’s story moves into more layered territory, exploring how debates around class have evolved, and centring the ways women look out for each other.
Julien is not a new voice but one that has been building steadily toward this kind of recognition. Her novel If You Save Me won the University of Johannesburg’s 2022 Debut Prize for Fiction, and her fiction has appeared in Pree, the Caribbean literary magazine. Her writing residencies include Femrite, Yale Writers, and the Jakes Gerwel Foundation.
Established and administered by the Commonwealth Foundation, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is open to writers from all 56 member countries. Regional winners receive £2,500, with the overall winner awarded £5,000. Entries are accepted in twelve languages in addition to English, and the five regional winners’ stories will be published by Granta ahead of the overall announcement on 30 June.
Julien’s win sits within a broader trajectory of increasing recognition for African writers within global literary institutions, where writers are not only participating in established literary traditions but actively reshaping them through new narrative frameworks, critical perspectives, and culturally grounded approaches to storytelling.