4thWrite Prize 2022

Welcome to the Guardian and 4th Estate 4thWrite Prize, a competition open to Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers living in the UK or Ireland who are 18 and above.

We want to read your story, whatever it may be.

This is the fifth year of the prize. Over the previous years, we have been overwhelmed by the quality of the stories we have found and the impact the prize has had. Last year’s winner was Gift Nyoni with his story, The Ritual Seat of the King.

We have had some extremely exciting writers longlisted and shortlisted for the prize who have gone on to have their work published, including the likes of Bolu Babalola, author Love in Colour published by Headline, Guy Gunaratne, author of In Our Mad and Furious City published by Tinder Press, Kasim Ali, author of Good Intentions published by 4th Estate, Gurnaik Johal, author of We Move published by Serpent’s Tail and Kit Fan, author of Diamond Hill published by Dialogue. We are incredibly proud of the prize here at 4th Estate and it is our hope that it continues to open up new opportunities for writers of colour.

The winner will receive £1,000, a one-day publishing workshop at 4th Estate and publication of their story on the Guardian website. After the winner is announced, the full shortlist will be published on 4thestate.co.uk. 

Our judges this year are Tash Aw, critically acclaimed author and twice longlisted for the Booker Prize, Sara Collins, author and winner of the 2019 Costa First Novel Award, Leah Davis, host and founder of Capital XTRA Book Club podcast, Catherine Cho, literary agent at Paper Literary, Justine Jordan, Fiction Editor at the Guardian and Kishani Widyaratna, Editorial Director at 4th Estate.

The deadline for submissions is 14th August 2022, the longlist will be announced on 21st September 2022, the shortlist on 19th October 2022, and the winner at the start of November (date tbc) at a prize ceremony in London.

Please ensure you read all of the terms and conditions before submitting, but if you have any questions then simply emails 4thWritePrize@harpercollins.co.uk and someone will get back to you. And don’t forget to join the conversation online using the hashtag #4thWritePrize.

We can’t wait to read your story!

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