The Jhalak Prize: Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour
The Jhalak Prize and the newly launched Jhalak Children's & YA Prize seek to support and celebrate books by British and British resident writers of colour.
Founded by writers Sunny Singh and Nikesh Shukla, this year the Jhalak Prize is five years old and will be celebrating the writers on its lists across social media, using #JhalakPrizeat5.
Previous winners include Johny Pitts for his exploration of African-European identity Afropean, Guy Gunaratne for his novel In Our Mad and Furious City, and Reni Eddo-Lodge for her hugely influential Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race.
This year's shortlists were announced on Tuesday 13th April, and the winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on 25th May in conjunction with The British Library.
Judges for the 2021 prizes were:
The Jhalak Prize
Yvonne Battle-Felton, Louise Doughty and Peter Falu
Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize
Candy Gourlay, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Verna Allete Wilkins
At National Book Tokens, we're thrilled to be partnering with the Jhalak Prize to help them increase awareness of the prize titles amongst booksellers, who have always been the best champions of books in their local communities. This year we distributed point of sale kits and social media assets to nigh on 100 bookshops so they could create instore displays and shout about the longlists and shortlists from their online channels.
Of the two prize shortlists, Jhalak Prize cofounder Sunny Singh said, "This year's Jhalak judges have selected – with much care and affection – two incredible shortlists that exemplify resilience, rebuilding, community and joy in literature. These are books that ask painful questions, are searingly honest in their confrontation with terrible realities, and courageously shine a light on aspects of human experience that often remains hidden. In doing so they offer much needed solace, inspiration and joy…for our times and into the future."
Find out more about the Jhalak Prize.