Eddo-Lodge and Millwood Hargrave make Jhalak Prize shortlist

Authors Reni Eddo-Lodge and Kiran Millwood Hargrave have made the cut for the 2018 Jhalak Prize shortlist.

The prize, first awarded in March 2017, seeks to celebrate books by British BAME writers and provide an "exciting snapshot of the incredible array of writers of colour in Britain today".

Eddo-Lodge is shortlisted for her "thunderclap of a book" Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Bloomsbury Circus), also shortlisted for The British Book Awards' Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year, while Millwood Hargrave is on the list for her YA historical novel, branded an "astonishingly beautiful book", The Island at the End of Everything (Chicken House).

Also in the running are Nadeem Aslam's "luminous" novel The Golden Legend (Faber) and Kayo Chingonyi's "lyrical, graceful and searing" debut book of poetry Kumukanda (Chatto & Windus).

Xiaolu Guo's coming-of-age memoir Once Upon a Time in the East (Chatto & Windus) and Meena Kandasamy's "intelligent piece" When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife (Atlantic Books) round out the shortlist.

The authors overcame competition on a 12-strong longlist that included a book on masculinity and grime by Jeffrey Boakye, a collection from Instagram poet Yrsa Daley-Ward and short stories from Leone Ross.

The shortlist was decided by an all-woman judging panel, consisting of: author and co-founder of the award, chair Sunny Singh; YA author Catherine Johnson; novelist Tanya Byrne; multidisciplinary writer and performance maker Vera Chok; and travel writer and journalist Noo Saro-Wiwa.

“The quality of this shortlist is testament to the breath taking quality and range of literary production by writers of colour in Britain today," said Singh.

The overall winner will be presented with a prize of £1,000 at a reception in central London on 15th March 2018.