Changing the literary landscape: an introduction to the Jhalak Prize
The winners of this year’s Jhalak Prize were announced at a ceremony at the British Library on 30 May. Yepoka Yeebo won the Jhalak Prize for her non-fiction debut, Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Swindled the World (Bloomsbury) while Hiba Noor Khan won the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize for her novel, Safiyyah’s War (Andersen Press). Prize founder Sunny Singh explains the background to the Jhalak Prize and its intentions for the future.
The Jhalak Prize was founded in 2016 after years of observing acute structural exclusions of writers of colour from the British literary landscape. Although there existed overwhelming anecdotal evidence, hard data had been hard to gather and collate at this point. Even the Writing the Future report in 2015 and The Bookseller magazine’s follow up in November 2016 had been frustrating for (and perhaps frustrated) by a lack of clear statistics: publishers seem not to collect or collate this information.
In this context, the Prize was created not only to celebrate extraordinary literature by writers of colour in Britan but also to attempt to piece together information on what was and was not being published. Eight years later, we continue collating year on year data from our annual submissions and piecing together a nuanced analysis of exclusions in publishing.
The Jhalak Prize is deliberately set up to be as inclusive as possible. There are no fees or expenses, books may be submitted by publishers, agents and/or authors, and the Prize accepts books in multiple formats including paper and electronic. We also accept self-published books.
Despite these efforts, in our first year, the Prize received a mere 118 submissions including fiction, non-fiction, short story, graphic novel, poetry, children’s books, YA, teen and all genres. Of these, nearly two dozen were self-published. To place this number in context, a 2014 report from the International Publishers Association noted that UK publishers had released over twenty new titles every hour in that year.
Only 15 children’s and young adult books were submitted to the Jhalak Prize in 2016. The scale of exclusion in books for children and young adults was made clearer by the 2018 CLPE Reflecting Realities report which noted that only 4% of children’s books published in 2017 featured Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic characters and only 1% of these books featured us as the main character. The subsequent Reflecting Realities report in 2019 found that books featuring characters of colour published in 2018 had increased from 4% to 7% and books featuring us as main characters had risen from 1% to 4%.
Although this signalled a positive trend, it was still far too slow. When one of every three children in schools in England and Wales is a child from a minority ethnic background, such exclusions tell one in three children – implicitly at least – that they are neither seen nor valued. It means that in every classroom, every day, one out of every three children is being made to feel that they do not belong or maybe do not even exist
While such lack of representation is not only commercial foolishness on part of publishing, it also has deeply harmful social, political and cultural consequences, individually and collectively. This is why we introduced the Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize in 2020.
The C&YA award is also not limited by genre and accepts fiction, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novels, picture books and more. The award also has no age restrictions and seeks submissions of all eligible children’s and young adult literature published each calendar year. In its first year the Jhalak C&YA Prize received 76 submissions, including a dozen self-published books. Although a record 170 books were submitted for the 2024 awards, the quality and output remains wildly variable, especially year on year. There is also no viable way of creating genre specific awards or even age categories (yet). There simply aren’t enough eligible books being published!
The C&YA Prize has also revealed the scale of devastation caused by a decade and a half of austerity on our schools, libraries and bookshops and thus, our communities. However, we draw hope from dedicated teachers, librarians and booksellers who are keen to address the exclusions to the best of their abilities.
As a community focussed and led initiative, the Prize team puts writers and readers of colour at its centre, asking ourselves and our communities what we can contribute. When we identify a need, we find ways to address it. This is why the Prize actively reaches out to schools, literary festivals and bookshops to offer appearance opportunities to our longlisted writers and judges. Our website has become an ever-growing database of accomplished writers.
We also bring books by writers of colour to readers with the Jhalak Books to Readers programme. The project donates curated book boxes and partners donors with independent booksellers to ensure books by writers of colour reach readers through donations to community and school libraries. Through this programme, we reach readers who are often excluded for social, economic or geographical reasons and extend the readership of a broad base of writers of colour in the country.
The Jhalak Prize has always been a strategic intervention for equity and justice for writers and readers as well as a literary prize. Our aim for the Jhalak C&YA Prize has been even clearer and is driven by a moral imperative: we will not let a child – any child – feel unseen, unloved, unvalued. Until children’s and young adult publishing recognizes this same necessity, our work shall continue.
Sunny Singh is an author and founder of the Jhalak Prize.
