London, 19.15pm, 4 June 2008: Midlands based writer Sukhraj Kaur Randhawa has won the seventh Orange/Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition 2008.

Judge and editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Lucy Yeomans, presented a cheque for £1,000 to Sukhraj Kaur Randhawa at the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre in central London. The winning story will be published in the October edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine.

Now in its seventh year, the Orange/Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition forms part of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction literary portfolio and aims to support unpublished writers at the beginning of their careers.

Previous winners have gone on to achieve notable literary success including Clare Allan, who won the first ever Orange/Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition in 2001. Her debut novel, Poppy Shakespeare, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006 and went on to be longlisted for the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Broadband Award for New Writers. Earlier this year, the novel was dramatised for television and broadcast to acclaim on Channel 4.

Entrants to this year’s competition were asked to write a story of no more than 2,000 words on the theme of ‘Ambition’. Entries were received from all over the world and three finalists attended a writing masterclass held at the offices of HarperCollins in London.

Commenting on the winner, Amanda Ridout, Chair of Judges, said “The judges congratulate our winner – Sukhraj Kaur Randhawa – for her wonderful story with its exotic setting, powerful imagery and colourful and engaging characters. We look forward to seeing how her writing career develops and wish her every success. We would also like to highly commend the other two finalists who gave vivid and interesting interpretation to the theme of ‘ambition’.”

The two other shortlisted authors, Kirstin Zhang and Julie Ma, will receive £500 each.