Shortlist announced for 2019 Jhalak Prize for BAME writers

The shortlist for the UK’s Jhalak Prize for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) writers has been announced.

The shortlisted titles are:

• Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures (Roma Agrawal, Bloomsbury)
• Happiness (Aminatta Forna, Bloomsbury)
• Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of the Empire (Akala, Two Roads)
• The Perseverance (Raymond Antrobus, Penned in the Margins)
• In Our Mad and Furious City (Guy Gunaratne, Tinder Press)
• The Boy At the Back of the Class (Onjali Q Rauf, Orion).

This is the third year of the Jhalak Prize, which was launched in 2016 to recognise ‘authors who feel that their work is often marginalised unless it fulfils a romantic fetishisation of their cultural heritage’ after the 2015 Writing the Future report found that the best chance of publication for writers of colour was to write literary fiction conforming to a stereotypical view of their communities.

The winner of the £1000 (A$1630) prize will be announced on 1 May. Last year’s winner was Reni Eddo-Lodge for Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Bloomsbury).

Category: International news