Â鶹Éç

Ashley Margolis reads Ghost Kitchen by Ross Raisin, which is the fifth story shortlisted for this year's Â鶹Éç National Short Story Award with Cambridge University. Here we are taken into the underbelly of the gig economy in an unnamed city.

Ross Raisin is the author of four novels: A Hunger, A Natural, Waterline and God’s Own Country (2008). He won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award in 2009, and in 2013 was named on Granta’s once a decade Best of Young British Novelists list. He has written short stories for various publications, including Granta, Prospect, the Sunday Times, Esquire, Â鶹Éç Radio 3 and 4.

The Â鶹Éç National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The 2023 winner of the Â鶹Éç National Short Story Award was Naomi Wood who won for ‘Comorbidities’, a story examining the difficulty of maintaining love and intimacy in a marriage, from her debut collection, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Orion). The 2024 winner will be announced live on Â鶹Éç Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 1 October 2024.

All of the stories are available on Â鶹Éç Sounds where you can also download the Â鶹Éç National Short Story Award podcast which includes a Front Row interview with each of the five shortlisted writers.

Abridged by Rowan Routh
Produced by Elizabeth Allard