King of Nothing, Nathanael Lessore’s hilarious and heartwarming exploration of friendship and male identity was crowned the winner of this year’s Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize at an award ceremony hosted at the British Library on 4th June.

Lessore is no stranger to awards. His first book Steady for This (Hot Keys) won the 2024 Branford Boase Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Writing. King of Nothing (Hot Keys) won the Older Readers category for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2025 earlier this year and is also shortlisted for both the UKLA Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal for Writing.

This year’s judges – authors and educators Hiba Noor Khan, Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Alom Shaha – were united in their praise for King of Nothing, describing it as a life-changing book that “is vital for today”, while also being “immensely readable, heartwarming, and downright hilarious.”

Lessore is only the fifth winner of the Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize, which was set up in 2020 to celebrate books for children, teens and young adults written by writers of colour in Britain and Ireland. It is a sister award to the Jhalak Prose Prize – first awarded in 2017 – and the new Jhalak Poetry Prize, which was set up in 2024.

Jhalak Prose Prize Winner

Namesake by N. S. Nuseibeh (Canongate)

Jhalak Poetry Prize Winner

Collected Poems by Mimi Khalvati (Carcanet)