Disprin by Kailash Srinivasan

Kailash Srinivasan has made the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Disprin and The Baby.

The winner of the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The shortlist will be announced on April 18 and the winner will be announced on April 25.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1. The 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.

• The 2024 CBC Poetry Prize is now open to Canadian poets

About Kailash Srinivasan

Born and raised in India, Kailash Srinivasan now lives in Vancouver. His writing highlights fractures of all kinds: personal, societal, economic, religious and political. He also writes about injustice and inequality. His work has appeared in publications such as Identity Theory, Midway Journal, Snarl, Hunger, XRAY, Coachella Review, Selkie, Oyster River Pages, Sidereal and Lunch Ticket. He was shortlisted for the 2024 Malahat Review Open Season Awards — Fiction, the 2023 Bridport Prize for Fiction and the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize. He also received an honourable mention for the 2023 Craft First Chapters Contest. He's currently at work on his first novel.  

Srinivasan is on the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize longlist twice: for Disprin and for The Baby. He previously made the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for an earlier version of The Baby.

Entry in five-ish words

"When you lose a parent."

The story's source of inspiration

"When you lose a parent, you don't think of all the arguments, the fights, the disagreements, times your politics and religion head-butted. You think of the last photo, the last hug, the last handshake, the last joke that made your father laugh, the last time you smelled sandalwood talcum powder on him after a shower, the last time he called you Son."

First lines

It's been a week. Appa has been transferred again, this time from Ahmedabad to Lucknow. A house scooped behind a truck. Now boxes are in every room: stacked, labelled, heavy. Before Ahmedabad, you lived in Hyderabad. Before that, Bhubaneshwar.

Check out the rest of the longlist

The longlist was selected from more than 1,900 submissions. A team of 12 writers and editors from across Canada compiled the list.

The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections. This year's jury is comprised of Suzette Mayr, Kevin Chong and Ashley Audrain. 

The complete longlist is:

• The White Stetson Hat by Dennis Allen (Edmonton)
• Leave A Funny Message at the Beep by Vincent Anioke (Waterloo, Ont.)
• How Far Should You Go? by Anne Baldo (Windsor, Ont.)
• Kind Lady Lives Here by Jennifer Booth (Cambridge, Ont.)
• A Very Full Life by Rebecca Cuneo Keenan (Toronto)
• Four-Boot Fred by Izzy Ferguson (Dundas, Ont.)
• The Sea Comes Pouring In by Phil Glennie (London, Ont.)
• We Asked Too Much From God by Marian Godfrey (Victoria)
• Old Bones by Kate Gunn (Vancouver)
• dark by Mirabelle Chiderah Harris-Eze (Calgary)
• Lamentations by Miriam Ho Nga Wai (Toronto)
• Tremor of the Tongue by Nnamdi Ibeanusi (Kitchener, Ont.)
• How to Make a Friend by Zilla Jones (Winnipeg)
• Shopping by Delailah M. K. Grondin (Windsor, Ont.)
• Tiny Gifts by Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li (Toronto)
• Best by Annick MacAskill (Halifax)
• Transcendence by Britt MacKenzie-Dale (Kelowna, B.C.)
• Outpour by Lauren McNeil (Revelstoke, B.C.)
• The Ball Game by Adam McPhee (Fort McMurray, Alta.)
• Fish Sauce by Alexandra Musten (Ottawa)
• Tamago by Lindsay Naito (North Vancouver, B.C.)
• the worst has already happened by KM Naud (Vancouver)
• A Good Visit by Susan Paddon (Margaree, N.S.)
• Fermentation by June Pyo Park (Montreal)
• The Green Guest House by Mina Sharif (Toronto)
• How to Give Your Grief to the Moon by Traci Skuce (Courtenay, B.C.)
• Disprin by Kailash Srinivasan (North Vancouver, B.C.)
• The Baby by Kailash Srinivasan (North Vancouver, B.C.)
• Smack Dab by D.D.R.Staines (Cambridge, Ont.)
• Permission to Pause by Carley Thorne (Toronto)