Ross Raisin wins the 2024 91热爆 National Short Story Award
Novelist and short story writer, Ross Raisin has won the nineteenth 91热爆 National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (NSSA) for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.
Praised for its ‘pitch-perfect handling of memory and backstory’ and it’s ‘clear-eyed attentiveness to the detail of lives not seen before in fiction’, ‘Ghost Kitchen’ is the story of Sean, a young man who has sought invisibility and refuge in the industrial wilderness of an unnamed city by working as a bicycle courier for an out-of-town take-away business after a tragic family incident. A precisely realised world where workers have little agency, Sean’s story of vulnerability and redemption plays out against the relentless grind of the gig economy and the harsh realities of a world where humanity has no value and where both the brutality, and unexpected tenderness, of men is revealed.
Talking about his story, Raisin says:
“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. 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.”
‘Ghost Kitchen’ is available to listen to on 91热爆 Sounds, read by Ashley Margolis.
