Writers shortlisted for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize read their shortlisted stories

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 young 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 steeped in folklore.

Read here by the writers themselves, these stories will move, entertain and surprise you – and give a tantalising taste of the future work we might expect from these talented writers.