Writer in Residence announced as BBC judge

The BBC National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious competitions for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors receiving £600 each. The 2017 Award is open to UK residents or nationals, aged 18 or over, who have a history of publication in creative writing.  The Awards are now in their 12th year and the ceremony will be broadcasted live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row programme from 7.15pm on Tuesday 3 October 2017.

The judging panel is filled with award-winning writers and literacy specialists and will be chaired by best-selling author Joanna Trollope.  Alongside Sunjeev on the judging panel is 2014 winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Eimear McBride, 2012 International Impac Dublin Literary Award winner and academic Jon Mcgregor, and returning judge Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio

Dr Katy Shaw, Principal Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at Leeds Beckett said: “ The short story is a vital and dynamic form in the 21st century, yet often remains hidden in the shadow of the novel. Sunjeev works across the novel and short story forms and has spent the past six months helping Leeds Beckett students perfect their writing craft in shorter form. Our focus on contemporary literatures here means that the short story is and will remain a focus of practice and research for our Writer in Residence, world-leading English and Creative Writing researchers, and students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. We wish all the nominees the best of luck and look forward to reading their work.”

Sunjeev added: “I love short stories. I also love talking about short stories with other lovers of the form, so the opportunity to be a judge for this prize was one I jumped at. I can't wait to get reading."

Joanna Trollope, Chair of the BBC National Short Story Award Judging Panel, said: “It’s an enormous pleasure and honour to be chairing the BBC National Short Story Award for 2017. I am a huge fan of the short story as a genre, not least because it manages to create such a peculiarly intimate relationship between writer and reader, and I believe that relationship to be immensely important to good writing. There is nothing like a short story, really, to humanise literature, from the greats of the past – Chekov, de Maupassant, William Trevor – to the greats of the present. It is wonderful to see the genre revive as it has, in no small part thanks to awards like this one. And the revival has revealed many hitherto unknown talents in this far from easy, if rewarding, genre. I look forward so much to reading the entries for 2017 – who knows what we will discover?”

The BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust aims to expand opportunities for British writers, readers and publishers of the short story and honour the UK’s finest exponents of the form. James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012, when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by K J Orr for her story ‘Disappearances’. Sarah Hall, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Kate Clanchy and David Constantine have also won the Award, with authors shortlisted in previous years including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, and Naomi Alderman.

Sunjeev was appointed as Leeds Beckett’s first Writer in Residence in 2016, previously being named one of Granta’s Best of British Young Novelists in 2013 and a rising star of contemporary literature.

Born of Punjabi descendants, Sunjeev grew up in Chesterfield. After finishing school, Sunjeev studied mathematics at Imperial College London before working in the marketing department of a leading insurance company. His love of literature began when he was 18 years old when, on a trip to India, he picked up a copy of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children at the airport; it was the first novel he read and the catalyst to his writing career.

Since then Sunjeev has published two novels: Ours Are the Streets, which examined radicalisation among Muslim youths in Sheffield, and The Year of the Runaways, released in 2015, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The novel explores global issues of identity, belonging and culture through the lives of three male immigrants who arrive in 21^st century Sheffield.

To enter the BBC National Short Story Award please visit www.bbc.co.uk/nssa