Max Yu is the first to admit: He’s not very good at entering contests. (Or at winning them.)

It was one of his theater professors at the University of California, Los Angeles who told him to submit “Nightwatch” — the play he spent his whole senior year writing — for the Relentless Award, which the American Playwriting Foundation grants to one playwright a year for work that has not yet been produced.

The prize, created several years ago to honor the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, includes $45,000 and staged readings of the winning play at theaters across the country.

Yu was in Shanghai, where he works as an English teacher, when he learned that he won. He is the first Chinese-American awardee. (Submissions are judged in a blind selection; to date the prize has never gone to a white man.)

“Part of me is like, I don’t deserve to win this award,” Yu, who graduated in June, said by phone. “Because I’m 22. I’m way too young. I’m like a nobody.”