Alabanza, Jawando win 2023 Jhalak Prizes

In the UK, the winners of the 2022 Jhalak prizes, which recognise ‘authors who feel that their work is often marginalised unless it fulfils a romantic fetishisation of their cultural heritage’, have been announced.

Travis Alabanza won the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year for their memoir None of the Above (Canongate). Danielle Jawando won the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize for her YA novel When Our Worlds Collided (S&S Children’s). They each receive £1000 (A$1890).

Prize director Sunny Singh said of this year’s winners: ‘None of the Above by Travis Alabanza is a thoughtful, stunningly crafted meditation on identity, survival, resilience and defiance that inhabits the personal, but also transcends it to speak to universal ethical, moral and human concerns. Danielle Jawando’s When Our Worlds Collided is a compelling young adult novel that is urgent, necessary and intensely compassionate. These are books to be read, read again and cherished. These are also books that demand to be pushed into every readers’ hands.’

The novels were chosen from shortlists announced in April.

Last year’s winners were Sabba Khan, who won the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year for her graphic novel The Roles We Play (Myriad), and YA author Maisie Chan, who won the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize for her children’s novel Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (illus by Anh Cao, Piccadilly Press).

Category: International news