Showing results by narrator "Varaidzo" in All Categories

How does it feel to be constantly regarded as a potential threat, strip-searched at every airport? Or be told that as an actress, the part you're most fitted to play is 'wife of a terrorist'? How does it feel to have words from your native language misused, misappropriated and used aggressively towards you? How does it feel to hear a child of colour say in a classroom that stories can only be about white people? How does it feel to go 'home' to India when your home is really London?

Two souls come together and are torn apart, lifetime after lifetime. A seed of hope begins to grow out of the ashes of grief, heartbreak and loss. Romance sparks in the most unexpected of places. And an unbreakable bond is formed that transcends countries, continents and even the boundaries of time. In this extraordinary collection, 10 writers explore the full spectrum of love in all its messy, joyful, agonising and exhilarating forms. 

Collected here are the six best stories chosen by the judging panel of the Guardian 4th Estate BAME short story prize 2018. In them you’ll encounter a range of lives and situations: an armless swimmer representing Cultural Revolution China in the Paralympic Games; an encounter between a girl and a misanthropic B&B owner in the wake of the Grenfell tower fire; a schoolgirl helping her grandmother in a Chinese take-away in Hull; the residents of a street united by a piano; a historic town in China invaded by a powerful stench; and a teenage girl struggling with her gender in a small town.