Tina Makereti is the Pacific Regional Winner of the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Makereti holds a PhD in Creative Writing and convenes the IIML's CREW 256 Māori and Pasifika Creative Writing Workshop.

Tina Makereti,  is the Pacific Regional Winner of the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story 'Black Milk', selected from nearly 4000 entries.

Makereti is a graduate of both the MA and PhD Creative Writing programmes at Victoria's International Institute of Modern Letters and currently co-convenes the IIML's CREW 256: Special Topic - Māori and  Pasifika Creative Writing Workshop (Te Hiringa a Tuhi).

Now in its fifth year, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is for the best piece of unpublished short fiction in English. Read more about the Prize and the full 2016 shortlist.

Almost 4000 entries from writers in 47 countries were received for the 2016 Prize. From these entries, a shortlist of 26 was selected by a global judging panel, representing each of the five regions of the Commonwealth: Helon Habila (Africa), Firdous Azim (Asia),  Pierre Mejlak (Canada and Europe)  Olive Senior (Caribbean), and Patrick Holland (Pacific).

Five regional winners have now been chosen from the shortlist.

Chair of the judging panel, South African novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, commented: 'Tina Makereti's "Black Milk"...impressed with a lyricism that takes the reader into another world while keeping us always on earth...'

Read 'Black Milk' in full on Granta.

Makereti says: 'It's a wonderful surprise to win the regional prize with this strange little story. It couldn't have existed without Fiona Pardington's photography, which requires us to see in a different way. Good fiction makes us see in a different way also, so it makes me very happy that 'Black Milk' might have achieved that.'

Hear Makereti interviewed about her winning story. (Interviewer: Patrick Holland)

The regional winners will now compete to be selected as the Overall Winner of the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, to be announced at the the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica on 5 June.