ICE Centre for Creative Writing alumna wins top literary prize

Overcoming competition from more than 5,000 entries from 50 countries, ICE Masters in Creative Writing graduate, Mbozi Haimbe, has been selected as one of five winners of the prestigious 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. We caught up with Mbozi to find out about the Prize and her experience as an ICE student.

Turning passion for writing into judge pleasing prose

"Our lecturers at ICE encouraged us to submit stories to competitions,” begins Mbozi, talking about how she became an award-winning writer. “I wrote Madam’s Sister and entered it for the Commonwealth Prize in September last year. I completely forgot about it until April when I got an email to say I’d been shortlisted and, eventually, that I was a winner. I was very excited.”

Mbozi’s journey to that exciting time began much earlier, though. Growing up in Lusaka, Zambia, before moving to the UK two decades ago, she was always writing, always believing she had a story to tell. But it was a difficult time that finally encouraged her to make the decisive leap.

“My mum passed away in 2014 and it made me take stock of what I wanted to do. I applied for an Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing soon after, really enjoyed it and managed to get on the MSt the following year.”

“Although it’s a real challenge to fit study and writing around my family and my job as a social worker, studying at ICE really bolstered my confidence. I learned so much from the exercises and feedback and finally started to find my voice.”

An unfinished story?

Madam’s Sister, written and set in Zambia, is the tale of a guard at a gated community and the sister of a wealthy family who returns home from London. It’s an exploration of the human condition and of what happens when deprivation and affluence exist side by side.

Mbozi’s own prize-winning story may not be over yet, either. As the regional winner representing Africa, she joins four other winners from Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific at a ceremony in Québec City on July 9th to discover who will be awarded the overall Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

“All five stories are being published by Granta before the announcement and our trip to Canada is fully sponsored,” explains Mbozi. “It looks like quite an occasion, and I’m excited to be part of it. I didn’t imagine I’d come this far in the competition, so regardless of the final outcome, I couldn’t be happier.”

Learn More

To find out more about courses at the University of Cambridge Centre for Creative Writing, visit: www.ice.cam.ac.uk/centre-creative-writing

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This article was originally published as part of the 2019 Easter term and Long Vacation edition of Inside ICE.