Brighton Book Festival is delighted to collaborate with The Jhalak Prize to introduce you to the winners of the 2025 Jhalak Prizes in Prose, poetry and children in this unique online event.
First awarded in March 2017, the Jhalak Prize awards seek to celebrate books by writers of colour in the UK and Ireland. In 2020, the single award was bifurcated to create a dedicated Jhalak Children’s YA Prize. From 2024, the Jhalak Poetry Prize has been added to the awards portfolio. The awards only accept entries published in the UK and Ireland by writers of colour. The newly inaugurated Jhalak Poetry Prize accepts entries of poetry aimed at adults as well as children and young adults. The prizes are also open to self-published writers.
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on the Isle of Wight. She has lived most of her life in London. She has published nine poetry collections with Carcanet Press, and is the founder of The Poetry School. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, a major Arts Council Award and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of The English Society. In 2023 she was awarded the King's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Nathanael Lessore was born in Camberwell, South East London, as one of eight children to French and Madagascan parents. Nathanael can run 100 metres in under 10 minutes and has trouble finding sunglasses that frame his face properly. His debut book Steady For This was shortlisted for the Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize, and won the Branford Boase Award 2024. He writes stories that show his South East London childhood as the funny, warm, adventurous world that wasn’t always represented as such.
N.S.Nuseibeh is a British-Palestinian writer and researcher, born and raised in East Jerusalem. Her interests include issues around identity, ethics, inequality and education. She has previously written for the Atlantic and been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Namesake won the Giles St Aubyn Award first prize as a work-in-progress.
Sunny Singh was born in Varanasi, India and grew up around the world. She is the author of seven books including three novels and three nonfiction books including the recent A Bollywood State of Mind: A Journey into the World’s Biggest Cinema. Her latest book is a collection of short stories titled Refuge: Stories of War (and Love), to be published in July by Footnote Press. In 2017 she launched the celebrated Jhalak Prize for literature by writers of colour which now includes the Jhalak Prose Prize, the Jhalak C&YA Prize and the Jhalak Poetry Prize, and the Jhalak Review (a bi-annual insert in The Bookseller magazine) She is also a founder of the Jhalak Foundation, which focuses on a range of literary, artistic and literacy initiatives in the UK and beyond.
Previous winners include: Patrice Lawrence, Guy Gunaratne, Maisie Chan, Johny Pitts, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Sabba Khan and Travis Alabanza.
The Prize annually awards £1000 to each winner along with a unique work of art created by artists chosen for the annual Jhalak Art Residency.
Tuesday June 17th| 6pm
