Author Saba Sams (Se. 2009-12) has won the 17th BBC National Short Story Award for "Blue 4eva", taken from her debut collection Send Nudes.
Saba wins £15,000, and she was presented with her prize by chair of the judges, writer and podcaster, Elizabth Day, at a ceremony at BBC Broadcasting House.
"Blue 4eva" is a story about sexual identity, agency, power and class and takes readers into the lives of a newly blended family. It tells the story of 12-year-old Stella, her 18-year-old stepsister and Blue, her sister's best friend. Saba drafted the story when she was at the University of Manchester. Send Nudes, her collection, is also shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2022.
Saba said:
It’s very special to have ’Blue 4eva’ – a story I’ve been working on, in one way or another, since I was 19 – be given this kind of esteem," she said. "I first wrote ’Blue 4eva’ in rainy Manchester when I was a student, though it was very different then. The story was very short, more of a vignette, but I had fun with it.