Ross Raisin wins BBC National Short Story Award 2024

Novelist and short story writer Ross Raisin has won the 19th BBC National Short Story Award (NSSA), partnered with Cambridge University, for Ghost Kitchen, a story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the “dark kitchens” of the restaurant industry.

Raisin was presented with the £15,000 prize by the 2024 judges’ chair Paddy O’Connell at a ceremony held at BBC Broadcasting House and broadcast live on BBC Radio 4’s "Front Row".

Raisin, who won the Sunday Times’ Young Writer of the Year award in 2005 and Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists award in 2013, said he had been in a “deep writing trough” earlier this year, and remarked that his son, aged seven, had recently asked him why he always judges prizes and never wins them. “My daughter, who will be at Scouts, texted me earlier, saying: ’Tell me if you win’, in all caps, with three swag bag emojis.”

Raisin said: “During the research and writing of my last novel, I became interested in the growth of dark kitchens (also known as ghost kitchens), so called in part because they have no windows, no way for anybody on the outside to see in; places too that are often on the outskirts of urban areas; concealed islands that sometimes create the conditions for darkness to flourish.”

He added: “Thinking about all of this, and concurrently thinking about food-delivery models (by way of some fascinating conversations with bicycle couriers) led naturally to a deeper level of critical and creative thinking about the gig economy. One of the things that has felt different about this short story for me, compared to most I have written in the past, is that it has the feeling of a small and specific slicing into a universal story that unites an enormous–yet largely ignored–sector of society.”

Jenn Ashworth, BBC National Short Story 2024 judge, described Ghost Kitchen as this year’s “standout story”. She added: “The short story is one of the most difficult literary forms, demanding not only precise focus, but also a gesture towards a fuller, larger world. In Ghost Kitchen, Ross manages to give the reader the gift of a sleek, sharp, perfectly delineated moment—one incident in the life of one man—but also shows us, in a way that felt necessary and urgent to all of us, the complexity of an entire world.” 

This year’s judging panel was chaired by O’Connell, host of Radio 4’s Broadcasting House and co-host of the weekend edition of the BBC’s popular "Newscast" podcast. He was joined by novelist and critic Michael Donkor; memoirist, novelist and film-maker Xiaolu Guo; former NSSA shortlisted writer and professor of writing at Lancaster University Ashworth; and returning judge Di Speirs, books editor at BBC Audio. 

Speirs, a judge of the award since its launch, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Ross Raisin, a writer whose novels have stopped me in my tracks and made me see afresh, has turned his undoubted talent to the short story, and with similarly powerful effect. A brilliantly rendered glimpse into life in the edge-lands, Ghost Kitchen combines the tension of a dark plot with an unexpected and moving exploration of male friendship. Read it.”

This year’s shortlist included 2021 NSSA winner Lucy Caldwell, memoirist and novelist Will Boast, finance lawyer Manish Chauhan and former museums and heritage expert Vee Walker.

Ghost Kitchen and the other shortlisted stories are available on BBC Sounds.