‘Pleasure and invigoration’: Diana Evans wins UK’s Jhalak prose prize

Diana Evans has won this year’s Jhalak prose prize for I Want to Talk to You, a nonfiction collection on subjects ranging from Jean Rhys and Toni Morrison to lockdowns and the British monarchy.

The book, described as a “pleasure and an invigoration” by the Guardian’s reviewer Alex Clark, was announced as the 10th winner at a reception on Wednesday evening.

The Jhalak children’s and young adult prize went to My Name is Samim by Fidan Meikle, described as a story of “resilience, adaptability and hope” by the Guardian critic Imogen Russell Williams. The poetry prize was awarded to Maggie Harris for I Sing to the Greenhearts.

“These are books that are urgent and necessary now and shall endure far into the future”, said the prize director, Sunny Singh.

Each award, open to books by writers of colour living in the UK and Ireland, comes with £1,000.

I Want to Talk to You was the unanimous choice for the prose prize, according to the judge and writer Ami Rao. Another judge, the writer Catherine Johnson, said the book was “the work of a confident author who can lead the reader into a myriad of conversations, about creativity, motherhood, and grief and music”.

Evans is also the author of four novels: 26a, The Wonder, Ordinary People and A House for Alice.

Other titles shortlisted for this year’s prose award were Act Normal by Pete Kalu, Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo, Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh, Hail Mary by Funmi Fetto, and The South by Tash Aw.

The children’s and young adult winner, My Name is Samim, is about a 13-year-old Afghan refugee who has fled to the UK. The judge and author Lanisha Butterfield said the book “is vital and deserves to be on school curriculums nationwide.”.

In the poetry winner, I Sing to the Greenhearts, Harris “effectively uses her native Guyana’s greenheart tree as a ploy to take us on a journey to explore facets of home, moving seamlessly between Patois and English”, said the judge and writer Kadija Sesay. She “weaves stories of colonial past and Black British present”.

Previous winners of the prize include Reni Eddo-Lodge, Guy Gunaratne and Travis Alabanza.