The Jhalak Prize 2025
The Jhalak Prize celebrates UK and Ireland writers of colour across prose, poetry, and children’s books annually with £1000 prizes. Poetry judge Malika Booker tells us more. Visit: https://www.jhalakprize.com/
This years winners are:
📚 Prose Prize N.S. Nuseibeh for Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman, a compelling essay collection exploring identity, religion, and colonialism
📖 Poetry Prize Mimi Khalvati earned the inaugural Poetry Prize for her Collected Poems. The judges praised it as “a luminous testament to a lifetime of lyrical precision, emotional depth, and formal mastery” .
👦👧 Children’s & YA Prize Nathanael Lessore won for King of Nothing, a humorous teen comedy about an unlikely friendship between two boys.
It launched in 2017 with one main award. In 2020, it introduced a separate Children’s and Young Adult Prize. Then, in 2024, the Jhalak Poetry Prize was added. The awards accept books published in the UK and Ireland. Writers must be people of colour. They can submit fiction, non-fiction, short stories, graphic novels, and more. Self-published books are also eligible. The Poetry Prize accepts adult and children’s poetry. The Children’s and YA Prize covers all genres, including picture books, poetry, and non-fiction.
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