4thWrite Prize

4thWrite Prize 2021: Gift Nyoni, The Ritual Seat of the King

Gift was designed in Britain and assembled in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. During his first eight years in the UK he lived underground as an undocumented asylum-seeker, seeking refuge in libraries and trying to write, something he aspires to do well. He now lives out in the open in London, and is working on his first novel. He’s interested in identity, trauma, memory, and notions of home. The Ritual Seat of the King  The Rhodesian civil war ends and hope abounds in the new Zimbabwe, but when David’s father returns to the family home it soon becomes apparent that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the young boy’s fascination soon turns into revulsion.  Read More

4thWrite Prize 2021: Nicola Sheppey, Pontianak

Nicola works in architecture in London, having lived between Malaysia and the UK. Her creative non-fiction has been published in Epoch Press. She writes both short fiction and full-length novels, and recently graduated from Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel course. A Malaysian setting inspires her work, and she is drawn to magic realism and mythology in her writing. Follow her at @NicolaSheppey on Twitter and Instagram. Pontianak A young woman is placed in postpartum confinement and feels a malevolent presence threatening to invade.  Read More

4thWrite Prize 2021: Sulaxana Hippisley, Cadaver

Sulaxana is an English teacher, writer and single mother. Runner up in the 2019 Bridport Short Story prize, she has been long listed for the 2020 BBC Short Story Award, the Bristol Short Story prize, the 2019 ‘Spread the Word’ Life Writing prize and  the Asian Writer short story competition. She was mentored by Courttia Newland for the 2017 Almasi League and is currently working on her first novel.    CadaverOn the eve of a dinner party, a young woman encounters the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil  war. Read More

4thWrite Prize 2021: Amaan Hyder, Postpositions

Amaan is the author of the poetry collection At Hajj (Penned in the Margins, 2017). His poems have appeared in various publications including The Guardian, Poetry Review and Poetry London. He is a Ledbury Poetry Critic 2021 and a doctoral student at Royal Holloway, University of London. Follow him at @hyder_amaan on Twitter.PostpositionsPostpositions comprises thirty reflections by an unnamed narrator concerning inheritance, queerness and late nineties-early noughties television.  Read More

4thWrite Prize 2021: Laura Blake, Home is Not Here

Laura Blake – Home Is Not Here  Laura is a writer and editor based in Birmingham. She is mixed race, with two Jamaican grandfathers and two English grandmothers, which always makes for an interesting conversation about identity. She has an MA in Literary Studies from Aberystwyth University. In 2020, she was a finalist in the George Floyd short story competition and shortlisted for the Leicester Writes competition. Follow her at @LauraJBlake on Twitter. Home Is Not Here  When she was seven years old, Birdie Brown left Jamaica with her parents to begin a new life in England. Now, at the age of seventy, she faces being deported back to a country she barely remembers. Read More

4thWrite Prize 2021: Inigo Laguda, Hopscotch

Inigo was born in Bedford, raised in Stevenage and currently resides in North London. He graduated in Writing and English literature from Anglia Ruskin University. His poem, Beautiful Tasting Words was a winner in the ‘Edith Sitwell’ Challenge on The Young Poet’s Network. His essays have been published in The Metro, Netflix: Bigger Picture, Wear Your Voice Magazine, Racebaitr and Black Youth Project. Follow him at @saveinigo on Twitter and Instagram.  HopscotchUnstuck in time, A Black boy raised in a homogeneously white commuter-town hurtles between libidinal incidents that have shaped him.  Read More

Deep Heart by Kandace Siobhan Walker

We are always barefoot. I try to explain this to the police officers who arrive from the mainland. We’re quieter this way and we need to be quiet when we’re stalking wild animals in the pine forest. Heaven walks in front because she’s the oldest, then me because I’m the youngest, then Bluebird at the rear. When I tell the black policeman we were hunting, Heaven shakes her head. She tells him we were at home. He looks at me, then her, then back at me. We’re sitting at the kitchen table, the soles of our feet muddy and bleeding. Well, says the officer, which one is it? Read More

Packed Lunch by Jenna Mahale

MISE EN PLACE: the preparation of dishes and ingredients before the beginning of service Though he might not like to admit it, my dad has always been good with food. He has a talent for improvising kitchen cupboard scraps into a meal, transforming stale bread and old sun-dried tomatoes into delicious bruschetta, or producing delicate crudités from vegetable drawer remnants. He has an innate sense of what flavours pair well together, and an ability to plate things in the artful way they do in restaurants. He often denies this gift, brushing off compliments by saying he can only make snack-food, which is really just his way of saying he doesn’t want to cook for the household. Read More

Once we were Warriors by Jameen Kaur

‘Check the time and date properly on the ticket. I don’t want us getting a fine. I’m still paying off your brother’s overdraft,’ said Mum, as she pulled herself out of the car. Read More

50 Rose Tower by Oluchi Ezeh

The summer before our family fell apart, a legend started on our estate. I was ten at the time, and like every other ten year old, all I wanted to do was spend summer riding around on my bike at the park near our house. The climbing frames in the park were rusty and completely discoloured – unless whoever built them had intended brown to be the colour of childhood excitement – so it didn’t appeal to many parents as an afterschool site. Also, I’m pretty sure that drug dealers used to hang out there but I never met any, so how much of a presence could they have been really, you know? Read More

The Hyacinth Girls by Arenike Adebajo

The rainy season brought rumours. Whispers of poison after a mass recall of Indomie noodles. A girl in Form 3 reappearing after several months with family in Maryland, withdrawn. Lurid headlines warned of cults, front pages daubed with blurry corpses. There were mutterings that the pastor of the Shining Light Ministry had not succumbed to a brief illness as had been announced to his congregation. Suicide. A word breathed into neighbours’ ears along pews. They said the body would never have been found if the hyacinth had not bloomed so late. Read More