Young trainee doctor from Northern Kenya shortlisted for prestigious writing prize

“I'm actually very surprised for making the shortlist, but more than anything it feels like a nod of approval because I haven’t been the best in believing in myself and in my writing.”

 Buke, 24, says and recalls being good at writing in primary and high school. She recently finished her Doctor of Pharmacy Degree at the Pakistani-based University of Karachi and is hoping to venture into the job market soon.  

“I started writing in high school as a way of processing the grief of losing my father to cancer in 2015. Back then I was a Form 3 student at Limuru Girls School and I had to go back to school two weeks after my father’s death," she says.

"I couldn’t be crying everywhere. To let out my grief, I started with poetry. But I started thinking in a broader way and writing short stories in 2020. Losing my father was hard; I feel like people don’t give enough space for grief."

"I feel like it’s important for people to be allowed to grieve over their loved ones. Writing was the only way of letting out my grief, because I really never expected my father to pass away. Even though I knew my dad had cancer, I thought that he would recover.”

Buke is the eldest in a family of four girls. She went to Full Gospel Primary School in Moyale for her primary education.

The story

The idea that would finally grow into Price Tags took around a month to mature in Buke’s mind.

“I wrote the first draft story in October 2022 over three days. I feel like the story idea goes through so much transformation before the actual writing. By the time I finished writing the story, only a bit of the idea made it to the draft. I always leave room for the idea to grow,” Buke says. 

After writing the first draft of what would become Price Tags, Buke shared the story with four of her friends. After the friends gave Buke feedback, she reworked the story wherever necessary.

“I am blessed to have four friends who are artistically-inclined, if I may say. I am still growing as a writer, but I think what inspires my poetic style is the need to let more emotions out in my stories, for the emotions to be felt. I personally don’t like stories that are just very descriptive and it is just words and words and words.”

Price Tags, alongside the other shortlisted stories haven’t been made public yet, but the Commonwealth Foundation have published an excerpt of Buke’s story.

Buke clarifies that though her story is primarily in the present continuous tense, some flashback parts are in the past tense.

“Shuke, the protagonist, narrates the story through the first person point of view because I needed it to feel personal to the reader. I didn’t want it to feel like something being observed by someone else from a distance.”    

Being from the Borana community, Buke notes that her story is deeply rooted in the Kiborana language and culture.

She believes that many things happening every day in her community aren’t talked about enough.

“I needed the story to be ours, not just any general story. There are many things which inspired the story. My own personal life, my parents. The things our parents go through to give us the life we have."

"I just need the struggles my mother goes through to be seen in the story, because people go through a lot to give their children a good life. Normally it’s the end product which is seen but not really how the parents manage everything,” Buke, whose list of favourite writers include Khaled Hosseini, says.

Apart from Buke Abduba’s Price Tags, another Kenyan writer, Josiah Mbote, also made the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story, Punching Lines.

The shortlisted stories will be published in adda, the Commonwealth Foundation’s online platform.

Each of the regional winners, who will be announced on May 17, will receive Sh411,663.

The overall winner, selected from regional winners, will be made public on June 27 and will receive a cash prize of Sh823,327.