Erika's stories invite readers into a world where surprising moments of beauty emerge against undercurrents of unease and restlessness. A houseboy in Kolkata dreams of owning an Action Man toy. A young girl in Delhi reunites with an old friend whose life she longs for. A mother and daughter befriend a stranger in 1970s London. Whether set on the rolling tea estates of Assam, on a train hurtling through the Bengal countryside, or the rain-slicked streets of London, her stories are laced with subtle humour and detail, speaking to anyone who has ever felt caught between two worlds.
COMPETITIONS, PUBLICATIONS AND PRIZES
Erika’s short fiction has been published in anthologies and journals and she has won and been listed for awards including the Fish Short Story Prize, Plaza Prize, Bridport Prize, RSL V.S Pritchett, Lorian Hemingway, Bristol Short Story, BBC National Short Story and London Short Story Prize.
She is the winner of the 2025 Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition.
Judges comments “A sensitive and wryly amusing tale about two childhood friends crossing paths after years living in different countries.’
‘This story tells you so much about class, about race, about colonialism. Short stories always have this tension of the acclomplishment of language versus the acclomplishment of form. This has both.’ ben Okri, Judge
Erika has been Long listed for the HWA Dorothy Dunnet Short Story Prize 2024
‘The Hibiscus Thief’ is now published by Fairlight Books (14 March 2024)
Long listed for the Fish Short Story prize and short listed for the Plaza Short Story prize
Erika’s short story ‘She Came To Stay’ has been included in an anthology of short fiction, ‘Same Same but Different’, published by Everything With Words, 2021.
Erika is one of the top ten highly Commended writers for the 2020 Bridport Prize, long long listed for the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize and Shortlisted for the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize. In 2019 she was one of the top sixty writers in the BBC Short Story Award. In 2018 Erika was long listed for the Royal Society of Literature V.S Pritchett Memorial Short Story Prize, the London Short Story Prize and she was on the list of Honourable mentions in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.
She was long listed for the Bath Novel Award in 2016. Erika was runners up in the Mslexia short story competition 2012.
Published Short Stories:
Erika Banerji is the winner of the 2025 Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition for her story ‘Christopher’
‘I was buying rice at Singh’s Convenience Store and when I looked up, there he was, dressed in a pair of colourful pantaloons and a dirty white kurta. He had a long brown beard, and his hair fell below his ears and flopped onto his forehead. If we hadn’t been expecting him for the past few weeks, I might not even have recognised him.
I ran across the road to catch him. He was about to ask Hari, the guy who did the ironing at his run-down shack on our street corner, for directions.
‘Christopher?’ I said, and he turned to me with those green eyes I remembered so well, and he smiled in recognition. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘It’s me,’ he said spreading his arms wide.’
‘Marvellous Real’ published in The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, 2020.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize
‘There were guests expected at the apartment on Kabir Road, but that would not be until evening. Gopal, the nine-year-old houseboy knew he was by himself for the next three hours while the Mitra family were at the Tolly Club. So, he sat with his feet up on the green velvet couch in the living room and thought about how he might use his time alone. The washing up and dusting could wait.’
‘She Came to Stay’ published in The Bridport Short Story Prize Anthology, 2020 and ‘Same Same But Different’An Anthology of Short Stories, 2021
Highly Commended for the 2020 Bridport Prize.
‘A luminous tale about a lodger’s impact on an Indian family.’ Angela Readman in London Review Bookshop, October 2021
‘In September 1974, a year after we moved from Kolkata to England, Ruby Miller came to stay as our lodger in the attic room of the house we rented on Maple Drive. My mother hated the idea of a stranger in our home but my father insisted.
‘There is no other way to earn some extra money,’ he said and his word was as always, final.’
‘Miss Edith Comes to Tea’: published in The Asia Literary Review, 2019.
'Edith Williams didn’t like change. At 9:25 a.m., on a Friday in April, she put a chair by the front window and peered through a gap in her net curtains to keep an eye on the removal van parked in front of her lawn. To be sure she wouldn’t miss a moment of the arrival of her new neighbours, Edith filled a flask with hot tea and moved the small electric heater nearer her feet.'
‘First Time Ever’ published in the Spread The Word London Short Story Anthology, 2018.
Longlisted for the London Short Story Prize 2018
‘The format of the radio show was simple. At seven thirty every Friday morning, five minutes of the breakfast show was given over to the children. The host of the show asked, ‘What amazing thing have you done for the first time ever?’
