We are thrilled to announce that the winner of the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize 2018 is Yiming Ma for his story, Swimmer of Yangtze.
Yiming Ma is a Chinese-Canadian writer and recent graduate of Stanford University. Previously, he lived in London, where he worked with schools for low-income families in SE Asia and Africa. His writing has appeared in Ricepaper Magazine and been shortlisted by Glimmer Train and Geist. His story ‘Swimmer of Yangtze’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and 2018 LitMag Virginia Woolf Award. He will join Penguin Random House this autumn.
Set in Cultural Revolution China, Swimmer of Yangtze follows the unlikely rise and fall of an armless swimmer born into a nameless village near Wuhan. Narrated by an elder, the story is an unforgiving exploration of how societies create and abandon their heroes.
As winner, Yiming receives £1,000, a one-day workshop with 4th Estate editorial, publicity and marketing teams, and his story published on the Guardian website.
Read all the amazing shortlisted entries by clicking below.
The Shortlist
Something Buried in the Ground by Jason Deelchand
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