IN MAY, after 62-year-old Cunupia resident Jamir Nazir was declared the regional winner of the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, allegations surfaced that his submission, The Serpent in the Grove, was AI-generated.Last Tuesday, the Commonwealth Foundation declared Nazir the overall winner of the competition, stating that it had determined that AI was not used to write the winning stories.Prior to the controversy which catapulted him into the spotlight, Nazir was a relatively unknown figure in the literary world. And to the average Trinidad and Tobago citizen.But who is he? Nazir sat down with the Sunday Express at his Cunupia home on Friday for his first interview with a local media house.He shared that while he has gained international recognition for his entry to the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, his inclination for writing began at age ten, when he wrote his first poem.Since then, he has continuously written verse in a private and personal capacity, and self-published two books of poetry, Night Moon Love in 2017 and One a Day in 2019.The eldest of three children, Nazir said he spent his childhood in a small sugarcane village in South Trinidad along Reform Road.His father, Hamid Nazir, now deceased, was a sugarcane worker on the Reform Sugar Estate, and his mother, Elsie Nazir, is now 81.As a second-generation Indo-Trinidadian, he said while he considered himself 'Trini to the bone', he understood his ancestry and where he came from.'Being young, I remember that an important thing, in trying to mould and develop us and help us to become suited to deal with life, is that education was a major thing because none of them (his parents) had the opportunity to go to secondary school,' he continued.Nazir attended Reform Presbyterian Primary School and San Fernando Government Secondary School.While pursuing agricultural studies at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, he met and married his wife at age 21, with the couple celebrating their 42nd marriage anniversary this year.After a year of study at The UWI, Nazir and his bride migrated to the US, where he said he pursued a BSc and an MBA in financial services at the California Coast University and the University of Florida, Jacksonville.He returned to Trinidad three years later, where he sat several examinations under the Academy of Insurance in Diego Martin and began a career in insurance, serving at a number of insurance companies in senior capacities, locally and regionally.Nazir also worked in the public sector for sixand- a-half years, where he served as Head of Policy and Strategy at the Office of the Prime Minister. His portfolio later changed to Director of Strategic Services, Policy, Strategy and Government Performance Management Division.Owing to worsening health conditions in 2017, he said he retired from the public service, but continued consultations for companies.'I was born with diabetes and it has been a plague and a scourge throughout my life,' he said.He said the disease, which causes him chronic pain, contributed to kidney failure in 2019, forcing him to undergo a kidney transplant in 2021.Recently, he was also diagnosed with cancer, for which he continues to receive chemotherapy"I didn't need AI"