Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
WELKIN PRIZE 2026 - THIRD PLACE
That Witch, Gopa Devi, She Burn
by Ani Banerjee
Based on a real event that occurred on July 6, 2025, in the State of Bihar, India.
Because the Ojha said so. Because ojha exorcise, poke her with hot needle, but Gopa-Devi quiet, no cry. Because no one should look at her. Lallu looked at her, tak-tsk, when he bumped into her at the bazaar and scattered all her potatoes. That night Lallu ate some roti, threw up, and died. Lallu no go doctor-woktor. Doctors don’t cure witchery, na? The men, they punish. We look, the men tie Gopa-Devi to that banyan tree. The kerosene dark fire. See black mark here? The hissss, the smell, still that silence.
Ani’s flash fiction has been published in magazines like Swamp Pink, Lost Balloon, McQueen’s Quinterley, Dribble Drabble, and anthologies, and nominated for Best Small Fiction and Best of the Net in 2024. Her story has been included in a collection of South Asian Flash published by the Royal She has been included in Flash Fusion, an anthology of South Asian Literature published by Dahlia Publication, published with a grant from the Royal College of Literature, UK, 2024 and longlisted for Smokelong Micro Contest, 2025. She is a retired lawyer, mostly human from Houston, Texas, who hails from Kolkata, India.
Judge's comment:
This story feels speculative or historical in nature. It's about witchery. It's about accusations. But it also feels so horribly real to this present moment in time. As the subtitle tells us, this is based on a real event that happened just last year, and that subtitle hangs over the piece like a shadow, everything building in this brilliant tone of voice, sharp, clipped, propulsive, sensory - and as with all good stories, it doesn't just tell this one story, it also widens outwards to make a reader ponder that ending note of silence, the fact that too often there is silence, too often there are burnings (both literal and metaphorical) much like this one here.
