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SHORT STORY PRIZE: The winner of the Guardian 4th Estate competition will be announced on September 10

JUDGES OF the Guardian 4th Estate short story prize have announced this year’s shortlisted writers – all of which are women.

The all-female shortlist consists of Arenike Adebajo, Oluchi Ezeh, Sonia Hope, Jameen Kaur, Jenna Mahale and Kandace Siobhan Walker.

Adebajo, who grew up in Lagos and the UK, is in the running for her entry The Hyacinth Girls, a coming-of-age story of centred on the lives and loves of two teenage girls in Lagos.

Ezeh, a recent Oxford University English literature graduate, secured a place on the shortlist with her story 50 Rose Tower, which follows a young man named Marcus as he recalls a significant event from a past summer in his south London tower block home.

Hope, who is of Jamaican and Trinidadian heritage, made the shortlist with her entry The Cat by The Incredible Jimmy Smith. Set in 1960s London, Hope’s story sees a jazz record bought in secret cause marital difficulties between a young couple from the Caribbean.

Walker’s Deep Heart centres around three sisters living in an isolated island community. When one of the sisters goes missing, the remaining two set out to find her in the forest. Walker was born in Toronto to a Jamaican-Canadian mother and a Gullah-Geechee father.

Kaur was shortlisted for Once We Were Warriors and Mahale for Packed Lunch.

The fiction prize, which is sponsored by the Guardian and publisher 4th Estate, is exclusively for black, Asian and minority ethnic writers.

This year’s shortlisted writers were selected from almost 200 entries. The winner will be revealed on September 10 at a ceremony in London and will receive a £1,000 prize. They will also have their story published in the Guardian and participate in a one-day workshop with 4th Estate, publishers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists and Otegha Uwagba’s Little Black Book.

Last year’s winner was Yiming Ma, who won with his story Swimmer of Yangtze.