The Human Phonograph, set on a Chinese nuclear base where a married couple is reunited after seven years apart, is judges’ unanimous choice for award

British author Jonathan Tel has beaten prize-winning writers from around the world to win the Sunday Times EFG short story award.

Tel’s The Human Phonograph is set on a nuclear base in China, examining the relationship between a married couple who have not seen each other for seven years. It was chosen for the £30,000 prize, the world’s richest for a single short story, ahead of shortlisted works by authors including the US writer Edith Pearlman, Zimbabwean Petina Gappah, winner of the Guardian first book award, and Colum McCann, winner of the Impac prize.

The novelist Rose Tremain, who judged this year’s prize, said the decision to choose Tel was “unanimous among the judges”, and that the panel feels that Tel “has a bright future as a fiction writer”.

Commonwealth short story prize: The Human Phonograph by Jonathan Tel - short story Read more

“The hesitant relationship between a husband and wife who barely know each other forms the basis of this troubling, well-wrought story, set on a Chinese nuclear base in the 1960s and 70s. But it is the image taken from the title – of a man who, in a silent, punitive and desolate world, can remember the old songs and sing them perfectly every time – that elevates it to something truly memorable,” said Tremain.

Tel was shortlisted for the prize two years ago for his story The Shoe King of Shanghai, and won the Commonwealth short story prize for The Human Phonograph last year. He has published two story collections – Arafat’s Elephant and The Beijing of Possibilities – and a novel, Freud’s Alphabet.

Tremain was joined on the judging panel by broadcaster and novelist Melvyn Bragg, novelist Mark Haddon, critic Alex Clark and the Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate, along with chair of judges Lord Matthew Evans. “Jonathan Tel’s winning story is a remarkable and very moving feat of storytelling and it’s all the more remarkable when you consider the huge number of entries we had this year – over 800, a record for the prize,” said Holgate.

The £30,000 award is now in its seventh year, and has been won by authors including Yiyun Li, Junot Díaz and Kevin Barry. Tel is its first British winner.