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Savages by Lewis DeSoto

CBC Books | Posted: April 3, 2025 1:30 PM | Last Updated: April 3

The Toronto-based writer is on the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist

Image | Lewis Desoto Adjusted Photo

Caption: Lewis DeSoto is an author who was born in South Africa but now lives in Toronto. (Submitted by Lewis DeSoto)

Lewis DeSoto has made the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize longlist for Savages.
The winner of the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity(external link) and their work will be published on CBC Books(external link). The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link).
The shortlist will be announced on April 10 and the winner will be announced on April 17.
If you're interested in other CBC Literary Prizes(external link), the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1.
The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January.

About Lewis DeSoto

Lewis DeSoto was born in South Africa and immigrated to Canada as a teenager. He is the author of the novels A Blade of Grass and The Restoration Artist, as well as a short biography of the Canadian painter Emily Carr. A Blade of Grass was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. The novel was also a finalist for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.
In 2022, he made the longlist for the CBC Short Story Prize for an earlier version of Savages.

Entry in five-ish words

"Freedom — lost."

The short story's source of inspiration

"During my childhood in Africa I lived for some years in a home for boys, where I knew a boy who thought he was my friend, but he was nobody's friend, he was our victim."

First lines

'Piss off, Obert!'
'Where are you guys going?'
Nobody really likes Obert. He doesn't have any friends. He pees his sleeping bag. He's a runt.
'Come on, Neto, let me come with you guys.'
Just because I stopped somebody stealing Obert's shoes, now Obert thinks we are friends.
We leave him and head away from the hole in the wire fence that encloses the collection of tents and buildings that make up the Umtentwini Relocation Camp and continue into the bush, along the path that Luckson says leads to the Lumela river. Maybe we can get home from there.

Check out the rest of the longlist

The longlist was selected from more than 2,300 entries. 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 composed of Conor Kerr, Kudakwashe Rutendo and Michael Christie.
The complete list is:

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