A teenager discovers her father only brought her from Pakistan to England because he was being haunted by the spirit of her late mother...A divorcee blunders into his ex-wife’ s garden with one goal in mind: to beat his personal best for holding his breath underwater in her pool...A waitress finds herself serving an old school friend who once had a great impact on her but now doesn’ t recognise her...
 
The stories shortlisted for the 2023 BBC National Short Story Award reveal characters unmoored from their pasts and quite unable to find themselves in their new lives. Displacement, dislocation and a need to rekindle old identities lie at the heart of these tales: from the woman trying to bond with a refugee and her young son, to the mother struggling simultaneously with the traditional expectations of her Chinese in-laws and the dangers of online life, these stories are freighted with disconnection but buoyed with a desire to start afresh.