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Welcome to the latest National Book Tokens news and updates for booksellers. Scroll down for news about our products, services and campaigns, or read our latest retailer newsletters.
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The Jhalak Prize longlists 2026 – celebrate the best books by writers of colour!
The Jhalak Prize has announced the longlists for its tenth anniversary year. The awards across three categories - Children's & YA, Prose and Poetry – celebrate the creativity, imagination and scholarly excellence of writers of colour in the United Kingdom and Ireland. For the sixth year, our support ensures that booksellers can promote these fantastic books to their local communities.
Below are all the details of the longlisted books, which are available to order from Gardners.
If you haven't already, sign up by 20th March to receive free printed point of sale materials for the shortlists, which will be announced on Tuesday 14th April. Plus, find out below how you can become a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner.
The Jhalak Prose Prize longlist 2026:
Act Normal: Joy and Despair in Postcolonial Britain, Pete Kalu (HopeRoad, 9781913109448)
Before We Hit the Ground, Selali Fiamanya (Borough Press, 9780008509606)
Call Me Ishmaelle, Xiaolu Guo (Vintage, 9781529929997)
Foreign Fruit, Katie Goh (Canongate, 9781805301738)
Hail Mary, Funmi Fetto (Magpie, 9780861547692)
I Want to Talk to You, Diana Evans (Chatto & Windus, 9781784744243)
Love Forms, Claire Adam (Faber, 9780571339549)
Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War, Ash Sarkar (Bloomsbury, 9781526648280)
Saraswati, Gurnaik Johal (Serpent’s Tail, 9781788169493)
Shamiso, Brian Chikwava (Canongate, 9781805301271)
The Science of Racism: Everything you need to know but probably don't - yet, Keon West (Picador, 9781035030675)
The South, Tash Aw (Fourth Estate, 9780008637644)
The Jhalak Children's & YA Prize longlist 2026:
A Taste of Home, Maryam Hassan, ill. Anna Wilson (Hodder Children's Books, 9781444969375)
Augmented, Kenechi Udogu (Faber, 9780571385843)
Girl, Ultra-Processed, Amara Sage (Faber, 9780571385911)
How to Catch an Idea, Forest Xiao (Orchard Books, 9781408366981)
I Can't Even Think Straight, Dean Atta (Hodder Children’s Books, 9781782509301)
My Name is Samim, Fidan Miekle (Kelpies, 9781444960969)
My Soul, A Shining Tree, Jamila Gavin (Farshore, 9780008617189)
Roar, Manjeet Mann (Penguin Books, 9780241647622)
Songs for Ghosts, Clara Kumagai (Zephyr, 9781803288093)
Supa Nova, Chanté Timothy (Nosy Crow, 9781805130666)
The Shell Keepers, Truly Johnson (Chicken House, 9781915947734)
Wild Journey, A.M. Dassu, ill. Joe Lillington (Zephyr, 9781035911899)
The Jhalak Poetry Prize longlist 2026:
Dante's Inferno, Lorna Goodison (Carcanet, 9781800174665)
Fragments, Tara Singh (Five Leaves, 9781915434326)
Foretokens, Sarah Howe (Chatto & Windus, 9781784746131)
Heirloom, Catherine-Esther Cowie (Carcanet, 9781800174795)
Holy Boys, Andres N. Ordorica (Polygon, 9781846976889)
I Sing to the Greenhearts, Maggie Harris (Seren, 9781781727713)
Leaning Against Time: Selected Poems, SuAndi (Carcanet, 9781800174993)
My Dearest Friend, Lady Red Ego (Verve, 9781913917678)
Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority, (eds) Mona Arshi & Karen McCarthy Woolf (Faber, 9780571370283)
Pulling Faces, Zakariye (Little Betty, 9781913268862)
The New Carthaginians, Nick Makoha (Penguin, 9781802067071)
Why I am not a Bus Driver, Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Bad Betty, 9781913268749)
Promote these incredible books to your customers and followers with free digital assets for your site and social channels. If you're sharing on socials, don't forget to tag us @book_tokens and @jhalakprize, using #JhalakPrize26!
Become a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner in 2026
The Jhalak Prize team are working on an exciting new initiative for their tenth anniversary year in 2026, and are inviting bookshops to become official partners of the Prize and all that it stands for.
A Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner is a bookshop that shares the values of the Jhalak Prize: to connect writers and readers from all backgrounds, to be inclusive and expansive, to welcome those who may have previously felt un-welcome. To be a Bookshop Partner is to say that your bookshop is a welcoming space, and that you’re committed to making customers from all backgrounds feel like a part of your community.
As a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner:
- You'll receive a window sticker to signify that your bookshop is a welcoming space for all members of the local community.
- Your bookshop will be included on the list of official partners on the Jhalak Prize site, and benefit from the opportunity to work with the Jhalak Prize team on additional PR and content opportunities for your bookshop.
- You'll be invited to share the ways in which you make your space inclusive and welcoming, to inspire other bookshops and demonstrate to the wider book industry the real impact that bookshops make in their local communities.
- Jhalak Prize and National Book Tokens will amplify the work you're doing on our social media channels and websites, to a wide audience of book lovers, book buyers and people in the book industry.
As we have since 2021, we'll continue to distribute free display materials for longlisted, shortlisted and winning titles to all bookshops that wish to use them, regardless of whether or not you're a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner.
If you'd like to join the list to receive free point of sale, or would like to find out more about the new Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partners initiative, please get in touch!
Get in touch for more information
Congratulations to the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year: One More Chapter!
We're delighted to usher in the new year with our announcement that the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year 2026 is One More Chapter, an independent bookshop at the heart of Radcliffe-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire.
The National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year award is given to new bookshops based, among other things, on their first full year of National Book Tokens sales and redemptions – a measure of how well they are engaging with local booklovers. One More Chapter's strong early performance in these areas helped it secure the award.
Charlotte, the owner of One More Chapter, said:
"Winning National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year feels truly overwhelming in the best possible way. I feel incredibly blessed to be recognised, not just personally, but for the community that has grown around One More Chapter. This shop exists because of the readers, families, authors and supporters who show up every day, and this award belongs to them as much as it does to me."
Lisa Bywater, Head of Marketing at National Book Tokens, said:
"Charlotte and her team capture the joy of bookselling at its best. The shop's strong early engagement with customers, illustrated by impressive National Book Tokens sales and redemptions, reflects a genuine commitment to helping readers discover their next perfect read."
The team have won a trophy, a luxury champagne, wine and food hamper, and promotion to National Book Tokens' 400,000+ book-loving email subscribers and 90,000+ social media followers.
Handy hints for Multi Factor Authentication
If you're using our online systems for National Book Tokens transactions, your account and password are kept secure with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). This means that you will be asked (approx. every 60 days) for a 6-digit One-Time-PIN (OTP) when signing in to the gift card authorisations, admin and reports sites.
MFA was introduced in September 2023, and all account users are required to set it up in order to access our online systems. There are many authenticator options available, but if you followed our guidelines at the time, you are likely to have downloaded the FIS Desktop Authenticator App or the authenticator.cc browser extension.
Discover our Presentation Card: a flexible rewards solution for local schools
Our popular Presentation Card incorporates a personalised or standard design National Book Tokens gift card into an A5 presentation card which can also include certificate-style information about the reward or award being presented. It offers greater flexibility and additional options to school customers looking to encourage reading for pleasure and give the gift of reading, in what is a very competitive market. What's more, there's no additional cost to personalise the Presentation Card.
As a bookseller, you can offer this product to local schools. As with personalised gift cards, we will manage the production process for you, and the transaction will go through your bookshop account. Just let us know how many Presentation Cards the customer would like, and the values to load, and we will do the rest on your behalf.
The Presentation Card includes all the usual details that you would expect to see on a gift card, and is processed the same way at the till. To find out more, email Uzo Onuora or call 020 7421 4654.
Email Uzo
