Christine Coates Among Black Letter Media’s Short Story Winners

We would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to PEN SA member Christine Coates for being selected as one of the winners for Black Letter Media’s annual The Short Story is Dead, Long Live the Short Story competition for her story Lightness of Light.

“The descriptions are vivid and exciting. Euphemistically tackling religious issues irreverently, you see all sorts of religious facets explored without really naming them. The language is very good too,” commented Tendai Mwanaka, one of the competition’s judges.

The story has been described as a slow-burning thriller is about a widow who sees more than a foreign(ers’) invasion in the robed newcomers who descend on her Free State dorpie. It is animated by its narrator’s patient eye for detail; even when the new residents stir animosity in the townsfolk.

Read more here.