Congratulations to Travis Alabanza and Danielle Jawando who have won the 2023 Jhalak prize celebrating books by British/British resident BAME writers. 

Travis Alabanza, None of the Above, winner of the Jhalak Prize is a writer, performer and theatre maker. Danielle Jawando, When our Worlds Collided, winner of the Children's & YA Jhalak Prize, is an author, screenwriter and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Judges described None of the Above, Alabanza’s memoir about being genderqueer, as ‘desperately important’, and said every teenager should read Jawando’s young adult novel When Our Worlds Collided. 

First awarded in March 2017, the Jhalak Prize and its new sister award Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize, founded in 2020, seek to celebrate books by British/British resident BAME writers. Recognising some extraordinary talent over the last five years, previous winners have included Jacob Ross, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Guy Gunaratne, Johny Pitts, Patrice Lawrence and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. 

We were delighted to celebrate the prize with an event at The London Library in May featuring Jhalak Prize judge Haleh Agar and Jhalak Children's & Young Adult Prize judge Maisie Chan in conversation with Yassmin Abdel-Magied, and readings from some of the shortlisted authors. Find out more here.

We look forward to welcoming the winners to the Library with two year's complimentary membership and a year's membership for the shortlist. 

This is part of an ongoing partnership between the Jhalak Prize and The London Library. 

You can find information on the Jhalak Prize here.