15 January 2024
Competition offers sixth formers submission to department magazine
The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures announces its inaugural Comparative Literature Writing Competition for students in Year 12 or 13 (S5 or S6 in Scotland).
The competition invites students to submit an original piece of writing in English on Legacies of Colonialism.
Histories of colonialism and empire have profoundly shaped our contemporary world. Most of the pressing issues that we face today – local and international conflicts, inequalities within and between countries, racial hierarchies, even climate change – have their origins in colonial structures and practices. As the historian Samir Puri points out, these practices ‘continue to haunt our minds in all manner of ways, stalking our subconscious understanding of who we are and of our place in the world’.
How, then, should we engage with these histories of colonialism and empire? What can they tell us about the world we live in now? What does the process of decolonization entail? How are experiences of decolonization shaped by different linguistic and cultural contexts? And what might a decolonized future look like?
How to Enter
Entries should be 400-450 words in length and written in English.
The topic may be addressed from any angle; your submission may take the form of a discursive essay, or you may choose a more creative form. Entries will be judged on the basis of both content and language.
Entries should be submitted by e-mail, together with the entry form, to alice.xiang@kcl.ac.uk by 20th February 2024.
Prizes
Each participant will be invited to a workshop and prize-giving ceremony at King’s College London in March 2024.
The author of the winning entry will receive a book token and will have their submission published in Comp Lit Mag, the magazine produced by students of Comparative Literature at King's College London, in Spring 2024.