Mena Fouda has made the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Hybrid Tongue.

The winner of the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four 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 22 and the winner will be announced on April 29.

Mena Fouda is a writer, poet and filmmaker. Her dignified process includes: petting and interviewing every cat she is lucky to cross paths with, telling bedtime stories to her basil plants, smelling expensive perfume to find out its secrets and dancing to dreamy music in languages she can half-understand. She is set to graduate from the University of Toronto with a specialist degree in cinema studies and will further explore the mysteries of film at UofT's cinema MA program.

"Tripping over words and memories."

"I wanted to give a sense of permanency to a compilation of memories and ideas that have defined my young adult life. Language is something that has given me so much strength — when I am able to transition a thought from mind to paper, I feel catharsis. But language is also something that constantly challenges me. I can't wait to be challenged for the rest of my life."

There is a street in Egypt by the name of Moez. It is where the new goes to catch a glimpse of the old. The confines of this pedestrian-only space contain rusty gramophones and traces of a different era. Veiled women brush shoulders with tourists struggling to haggle in broken Arabic. Moustache-clad men sit in cafes, smoking shisha, their foreheads beaded with sweat. The crooning voices of Egyptian greats — Om Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafiz, Najat — drift from speakers, their songs blooming even in the hearts of anti-romantics.

There is a girl who wanders this street at sunset. She absent-mindedly bites at her lips. Eager eyes devour the way in which the sun bleeds onto the cobblestone. Fluttering eyelashes feel the breeze of the desert wind. When people ask her where she is from, she says she is from here. Yet a small part of her cannot help but look at her surroundings with a sense of scrutiny, feeling like an intruder.

The winner of the 2021 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 the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2021 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31, 2021. The 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2022.