DIANA EVANS WINS JHALAK PROSE PRIZE FOR NONFICTION COLLECTION

Diana Evans has won the Jhalak prose prize for *I Want to Talk to You*, a nonfiction collection covering subjects including Jean Rhys, Toni Morrison, lockdowns, and the British monarchy. The award was announced at a reception on Wednesday evening, marking the prize's tenth year. Fidan Meikle won the Jhalak children's and young adult prize for *My Name is Samim*, a novel about a 13-year-old Afghan refugee who has fled to the United Kingdom. Maggie Harris received the poetry prize for *I Sing to the Greenhearts*.

The Jhalak prizes are open to writers of colour living in the UK and Ireland, and each award carries a prize of £1,000. Judge and writer Ami Rao said Evans's collection was the unanimous choice for the prose prize. Fellow judge Catherine Johnson described the book as "the work of a confident author who can lead the reader into a myriad of conversations, about creativity, motherhood, and grief and music." Other titles shortlisted for the prose award included works by Pete Kalu, Xiaolu Guo, Katie Goh, Funmi Fetto, and Tash Aw.

Prize director Sunny Singh said the winning books "are urgent and necessary now and shall endure far into the future." Judge Lanisha Butterfield said *My Name is Samim* "is vital and deserves to be on school curriculums nationwide." Judge and writer Kadija Sesay noted that Harris uses Guyana's greenheart tree in her poetry collection to explore themes of home, moving between Patois and English. Evans is also the author of four novels: *26a*, *The Wonder*, *Ordinary People*, and *A House for Alice*.