The Jhalak Prize
Haleh Agar, Anthony Vahni Capildeo and Monisha Rajesh
Haleh Agar
Haleh Agar is a novelist and short story writer based in London. Her contemporary debut novel Out of Touch was published in April 2020. Haleh's short story 'Not Contagious' was Highly Commended by the 2019 Costa Short Story Award, her flash fiction won the Brighton Prize, and her narrative essay 'On Writing Ethnic Stories' won The London Magazine's inaugural essay competition. She was part of the 2021 judging panel for The London Magazine's short story prize, and is judging Aesthetica magazine's short story competition this year.
Anthony Vahni Capildeo
Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Capildeo's numerous publications include The Dusty Angel (Oystercatcher, 2021) and A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022). Their interests include plurilingualism, silence, traditional masquerade, and multidisciplinary collaboration. They are Writer in Residence and Professor at the University of York, and an Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford.Capildeo's work has been recognized by awards including the Forward Poetry Best Collection Prize, a T.S. Eliot Prize nomination, a Cholmondeley Award (Society of Authors), and OCM Bocas Poetry Prize shortlisting. They were shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize in 2022 for their psychogeographic eco-poetry collection, Like a Tree Walking, completed while a Visiting Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Monisha Rajesh
Monisha Rajesh is an author and journalist whose writing has appeared in Time magazine, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and Conde Nast Traveller. Her first book Around India in 80 Trains (2012) was named one of The Independent’s top ten books on India. Her second book, Around the World in 80 Trains (2019) won the National Geographic Travel Book of the year and was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Award. Her third book Epic Train Journeys is currently longlisted for the National Geographic Travel Book of the Year.
Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize
Yaba Badoe, Maisie Chan and Irfan Master
Yaba Badoe
Yaba Badoe is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she was a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a general trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of African Studies at University of Ghana. Her short stories have been published in Critical Quarterly, African Love Stories and Daughters of Africa. Her first novel for adults, True Murder, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. Her first children’s novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars (pb Zephyr), was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award in 2018 and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Award. Her latest YA novel, Lionheart Girl, was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book of the Year 2022 and longlisted for Jhalak Children’s and YA Prize 2022. Yaba lives in London.
Maisie Chan
Maisie Chan is a children's author whose debut novel Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (Piccadilly Press) won the Jhalak Children's and YA Prize and the Branford Boase Award in 2022. The book was also shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2022. It has also been longlisted for the Diversity Book Awards, the Tower Hamlet Book Awards, the Spark Book Awards, the Redbridge Award and the Big Book Award. It was also a Guardian Books of the Month pick in 2021. Her latest novel Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu is out now with Piccadilly Press. She also writes the series Tiger Warrior under the name M. Chan. She has written early readers for Hachette and Big Cat Collins, and has a collection of myths and legends out with Scholastic.
Irfan Master
Irfan Master is an award-winning author of novels, shorts stories, poetry and plays. His debut novel, A Beautiful Lie, (Bloomsbury, 2011) was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's book prize and the Branford Boase award for debut authors and translated into 10 languages. His second novel for young adults, Out of Heart (Hot Key, 2017) was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal and UKLA award. Irfan's short fiction has also been published in numerous anthologies, most recently in The Cuckoo Cage (2022), Resist (Comma press, 2019), The Good Journal (2019) and the award winning, A Change is Gonna Come (Stripes, 2017). In 2019 he contributed an article highlighting the importance of greater representation in literature for young people that featured in Breaking New Ground, a round-up of British writers of colour produced by BookTrust and Speaking Volumes.