The Jhalak Prize
We're thrilled to partner with the Jhalak Prize – which celebrates books by writers of colour – to help them increase awareness of the prize titles amongst booksellers, who have always been the best champions of books in their local communities.
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The Jhalak Prize 2026
2026 marks the tenth anniversary of the Jhalak Prize. The last decade has seen the Prize celebrate an incredible wealth of talent by writers of colour published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. At National Book Tokens, we're proud to work in partnership with the Prize to ensure that these amazing books are brought to local communities by the bookshops that so brilliantly serve them.
The 2026 shortlists have been announced, with nominees across three categories: Children's & Young Adult, Poetry and Prose. These 18 books reflect the creativity, imagination and scholarly excellence of writers of colour in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Discover all the shortlisted and longlisted books below, and find them at your local bookshop.
This year's judging panel includes inaugural Jhalak Prize winner Jacob Ross alongside Romalyn Ante, Sita Brahmachari, Lanisha Butterfield, Nikita Gill, Catherine Johnson, Christine Pillainayagam, Ami Rao and Kadija (George) Sesay. The Jhalak Art Residency, which commissions artists and illustrators of colour to create unique works of art that serve as trophies for the winners of the Jhalak Prize awards, continues this year. The Jhalak Artists in Residence for 2026 are Hoang Giang (Children's & Young Adult), Malak Mattar (Poetry) and Munir Wakad (Prose)
Key dates
Shortlist announcement - 14th April
Winners announcement - 10th June
Visit jhalakprize.com for more about the prize, the Art Residency, and this year's judges.
Want to hear more? Don't forget to follow #JhalakPrize26 and @jhalakprize on social media for updates. Plus, enter to win your choice of this year's shortlists!
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"The 2026 shortlists exemplify the extraordinary quality of writing that the Jhalak Prize has worked hard to champion for the past decade. These lists go far beyond representation and instead are a glittering treasure trove of future classics. Here are books that excavate buried histories, push boundaries and lead us to brighter imagined and possible worlds. We cannot be prouder to be able to champion and celebrate such powerful literary works."
Sunny Singh, Prize Director
The Jhalak Prose Prize shortlist 2026
Act Normal: Joy and Despair in Postcolonial Britain
by Pete Kalu (HopeRoad)
Call Me Ishmaelle
by Xiaolu Guo (Vintage)
Foreign Fruit
by Katie Goh (Canongate)
Hail Mary
by Funmi Fetto (Magpie)
I Want to Talk to You
by Diana Evans (Chatto & Windus)
The South
by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
"This shortlist reflects the depth and breadth of work published this year... there was so much brilliance to choose from across fiction, essays, and memoir."
Catherine Johnson, judge, Jhalak Prose Prize
"This year's shortlist highlights the richness and diversity of diasporic voices, with each work offering a unique exploration of identity, migration and belonging across borders and generations."
Ami Rao, judge, Jhalak Prose Prize
"There is craft here; and there is freshness and innovation. Every book on this shortlist exposes us to meaningful ways of engaging with our world."
Jacob Ross, judge, Jhalak Prose Prize
Jhalak Children's & YA Prize shortlist 2026
Augmented
by Kenechi Udogu (Faber)
How to Catch an Idea
by Forest Xiao (Orchard Books)
My Name is Samim
by Fidan Miekle (Kelpies)
Roar
by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Books)
Supa Nova
by Chanté Timothy (Nosy Crow)
The Shell Keepers
by Truly Johnson (Chicken House)
"Stories that prove both small moments and huge journeys are of equal importance to the imagination."
Christine Pillainayagam, judge, Jhalak Children's & YA Prize
"Each title offers a thought-provoking slice of magic […] that reminds us to frolic in the wonderland of our imagination."
Lanisha Butterfield, judge, Jhalak Children's & YA Prize
"Portals of imagination, fun, scientific knowledge [and] magical, courageous storytelling."
Sita Brahmachari, judge, Jhalak Children's & YA Prize
Jhalak Poetry Prize shortlist 2026
Foretokens
by Sarah Howe (Chatto & Windus)
Holy Boys
by Andres N. Ordorica (Polygon)
I Sing to the Greenhearts
by Maggie Harris (Seren)
My Dearest Friend
by Lady Red Ego (Verve)
The New Carthaginians
by Nick Makoha (Penguin)
Why I am not a Bus Driver
by Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Bad Betty)
"These are stellar poets whose love and care shine through their words and pages."
Kadija (George) Sesay, judge, Jhalak Poetry Prize
"These books push boundaries, explore new voices and ideas, and exhibit the courage and vulnerability that make literature so vital."
Romalyn Ante, judge, Jhalak Poetry Prize
"A shortlist full of future classics is rare… Each collection features powerful narratives, diverse stories, all told with beautifully crafted cadence."
Nikita Gill, judge, Jhalak Poetry Prize
The Jhalak Prose Prize longlist 2026
Act Normal: Joy and Despair in Postcolonial Britain
by Pete Kalu (HopeRoad)
Before We Hit the Ground
by Selali Fiamanya (Borough Press)
Call Me Ishmaelle
by Xiaolu Guo (Vintage)
Foreign Fruit
by Katie Goh (Canongate)
Hail Mary
by Funmi Fetto (Magpie)
I Want to Talk to You
by Diana Evans (Chatto & Windus)
Love Forms
by Claire Adam (Faber)
Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War
by Ash Sarkar (Bloomsbury)
Saraswati
by Gurnaik Johal (Serpent's Tail)
Shamiso
by Brian Chikwava (Canongate)
The Science of Racism: Everything you need to know but probably don't - yet
by Keon West (Picador)
The South
by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
Jhalak Children's & YA Prize longlist 2026
A Taste of Home
written by Maryam Hassan, illustrated by Anna Wilson (Hodder Children's Books)
Augmented
by Kenechi Udogu (Faber)
Girl, Ultra-Processed
by Amara Sage (Faber)
How to Catch an Idea
by Forest Xiao (Orchard Books)
I Can't Even Think Straight
by Dean Atta (Hodder Children's Books)
My Name is Samim
by Fidan Miekle (Kelpies)
My Soul, A Shining Tree
by Jamila Gavin (Farshore)
Roar
by Manjeet Mann (Penguin Books)
Songs for Ghosts
by Clara Kumagai (Zephyr)
Supa Nova
by Chanté Timothy (Nosy Crow)
The Shell Keepers
by Truly Johnson (Chicken House)
Wild Journey
written by A.M. Dassu, illustrated by Joe Lillington (Zephyr)
Jhalak Poetry Prize longlist 2026
Dante's Inferno
by Lorna Goodison (Carcanet)
Fragments
by Tara Singh (Five Leaves)
Foretokens
by Sarah Howe (Chatto & Windus)
Heirloom
by Catherine-Esther Cowie (Carcanet)
Holy Boys
by Andres N. Ordorica (Polygon)
I Sing to the Greenhearts
by Maggie Harris (Seren)
Leaning Against Time: Selected Poems
by SuAndi (Carcanet)
My Dearest Friend
by Lady Red Ego (Verve)
Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority
edited by Mona Arshi & Karen McCarthy Woolf (Faber)
Pulling Faces
by Zakariye (Little Betty)
The New Carthaginians
by Nick Makoha (Penguin)
Why I am not a Bus Driver
by Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Bad Betty)
The Jhalak Prize celebrates books by writers of colour and annually awards £1,000 to three winners. The Jhalak Art Residency sees an artist of colour commissioned to create a unique work of art that serves as the trophy for each of the winners of the prizes.
The artists in residence for 2025 were:
Khaver Idrees - Jhalak Poetry Prize
Ketna Patel - Jhalak Prose Prize
Lucy Farfort - Jhalak Children's & YA Prize
This year's artists will be revealed soon. Find out more about the Jhalak Art Residency.
In Spring 2024, The Jhalak Foundation and the Royal Literary Fund’s WritersMosaic launched The Review, an editorially independent, 16-page biannual insert in The Bookseller magazine.
At National Book Tokens, we're thrilled to be partnering with the Jhalak Prize for the sixth year to help them increase awareness of the prize titles amongst booksellers, who have always been the best champions of books in their local communities. By distributing point of sale kits and social assets to bookshops, and by amplifying their activities through tailored PR support, we help them to create instore displays and shout about the longlists, shortlists and winners from their online channels and in local press.
"Championing the Jhalak Prize has always been so important for us. It has been an honour to have sponsored two winners, one being a Newham author. Such an important prize."
- Vivian Archer, Newham Bookshop
Previous winners of the Jhalak Prose Prize are N.S. Nuseibeh for Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman (2025), Yepoka Yeebo for Anansi's Gold: the Man Who Swindled the World (2024), Travis Alabanza for None of the Above (2023), Sabba Khan for The Roles We Play (2022), Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi for The First Woman (Oneworld) in 2021, Johny Pitts for Afropean: Notes from Black Europe (Penguin) in 2020, Guy Gunaratne for In Our Mad and Furious City (Tinder Press) in 2019, Reni Eddo-Lodge for Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Bloomsbury Circus) in 2018 and Jacob Ross for The Bone Readers (Little, Brown) in 2017.
Previous winners of the Jhalak Children's & Young Adult Prize are Nathanael Lessore for King of Nothing (2025), Hiba Noor Khan for Safiyyah's War (2024), Daniella Jawando for When Our Worlds Collided (2023), Maisie Chan Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (2022) and Patrice Lawrence for Eight Pieces of Silva (2021).
The inaugural winner of the Jhalak Poetry Prize in 2025 was Mimi Khalvati for Collected Poems.
Visit www.jhalakprize.com to learn more.
We're proud to support the National Year of Reading
If you're into it... read into it! In 2026, every adult, young person and child are invited to Go All In – to discover how reading can make the things you already love even richer.
