Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize 2024 – Shortlist Announced!

18 April, 2024

The shortlists for this year’s Jhalak Prize and Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize have been announced. Established in 2016, the Jhalak Prize was set up to celebrate books by writers of colour in Britain and Ireland. Its sister award for children’s and YA books was founded in 2020.

The Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize covers all genres, making the shortlist an eclectic mix of titles for young readers of all ages. This year’s shortlist was chosen by a panel of judges made up of authors JP Rose, Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Danielle Jawando, winner of the 2023 Children’s & YA Prize for When Our Worlds Collided.

Commenting on this year’s shortlists, prize director Sunny Singh said: “Every year, the Jhalak Prize shortlists exemplify literary excellence in contemporary Britain and mark them as future classics. I am in awe of the courage required to tackle difficult themes and ideas coupled with the command of the chosen genre and form demonstrated by our shortlistees. These are books about belonging and its price, about confronting injustice with hope, and about the audacity of trying even in the face of impossible odds. Most of all, these are books about moral courage, which makes the books on our 2024 shortlists necessary, urgent and timeless.”

Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors!

Cover images of the six titles shortlisted for the Jhalak Children & YA Prize 2024.

The Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize Shortlist 2024:

Geoffrey Gets the Jitters by Nadia Shireen (Puffin).

How to Die Famous by Benjamin Dean (Simon & Schuster Children’s UK).

Safiyyah’s War by Hiba Noor Khan (Andersen Press).

Steady for This by Nathanael Lessore (Hot Key Books).

To the Other Side by Erika Meza (Hodder Children’s Books).

Wild Song by Candy Gourlay (David Fickling Books).

You can see the titles shortlisted for this year’s Jhalak Prize here.

The winners of the Jhalak Prize and the Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize 2024 will be announced on May 30th at a ceremony at the British Library. Watch out for our winner announcement.

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