The Jhalak Prize 2025

Sareeta Domingo is the author of The Three of Us (formerly The Nearness of You) and creator of the romantic fiction anthology Who's Loving You. Her novel If I Don’t Have You was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards 2021. Her upcoming novel Possibility will be published in 2025. Writing as S.A. Domingo, she has authored YA books, including Love on the Main Stage, shortlisted for the Lancashire Book of the Year 2021. She is Editorial Director at Trapeze Books, Hachette.

Taran N. Khan, is an award winning journalist and non-fiction writer. Her first book, Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul was published by Penguin Random House in the UK and India in 2019. It won the Tata Literature Live! First Book award, as well as the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year award. Taran's work as a journalist and essayist has appeared in Al Jazeera, Granta, the Guardian, LitHub, McSweeneys, Himal Southasian and Guernica, among others.

Yepoka Yeebo, won the Jhalak Prize in 2024 for her enthralling debut Anansi’s Gold (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, Quartz, and other publications. She has been interviewed on PRI’s The World and NPR’s All Things Considered. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism and the University of London, Yeebo divides her time between London, UK, and Accra, Ghana.

Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican writer and award-winning poet. Thinking with Trees won the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. His second book, Self-Portrait as Othello, won the Forward Prize and T.S. Eliot Prize in 2023. He is a Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester and editor of the Penguin Modern Classics edition of Aimé Césaire’s Return to My Native Land. His nonfiction book The Possibility of Tenderness is due in 2025.

Malika Booker is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her anthology Two Young, Two Black, Too Different celebrates the collective's 20th anniversary. Her pamphlet Breadfruit (2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation, and Pepper Seed (2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize. She co-edited Stand Journal’s anthology of Black writers and won the Cholmondeley Award in 2019. She was awarded two Forward Prizes for Best Single Poem.

Will Harris, is a London-based writer. He is the author of the poetry books RENDANG (2020) and Brother Poem (2023), both published by Granta in the UK and Wesleyan University Press in the US, and the essay Mixed-Race Superman (Peninsula Press) which came out in 2018.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a writer and social advocate. A former mechanical engineer, she has published five books, including Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism (2023), named a ‘Best Book of 2023’ by School Library Journal. Her other works include Talking About A Revolution (2022) and You Must Be Layla (2019). She was selected as an ITV Original Voices writer for Emmerdale. Yassmin writes for The New Arab, TIME, and The Guardian, and her TED talk has over 2.5 million views.

Hiba Noor Khan is an award-winning author of seven children's books, including Safiyyah's War, which won the Indie Book Award and Jhalak Prize in 2024, and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Her books include The Little War Cat, Inspiring Inventors Who Are Changing Our Future and How to Spaghettify Your Dog. Her work has been featured in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Hiba holds an MA from SOAS and is passionate about social justice, climate justice, and good chocolate.

Alom Shaha is a science teacher whose books include How to Find a Rainbow, Why Don’t Things Fall Up?, and Mr Shaha’s Recipes for Wonder. He has written for New Scientist, The Guardian, and BBC Focus. Born in Bangladesh and raised in London, Alom previously worked in television, he currently teaches in London, contributes to textbooks, and has received fellowships from NESTA and the Nuffield Foundation. He also enjoys cooking Sylheti Bangladeshi recipes.

This is an online-only event streamed on the British Library platform. Bookers will be sent a viewing link shortly before the event and will be able to watch at any time for 7 days after the start time.