Imoh wins inaugural Lit in Colour Creative Student prize

Student Emmanuella Imoh has won the inaugural Lit in Colour Creative Student prize for her "bold and thought-provoking poem", told visually through a short video.

The 15-year-old, who attends Townley Grammar School in Bexleyheath, south-east London, was awarded the top prize from a field of more than 400 entries all responding to the question: what place do books have in your world? Imoh said her work focuses "on the meaning books should have on our world, while accepting that books can have ambiguous interpretations and meanings”. She said she was "in shock and disbelief" when she found out she had won the prize. 

She added: "I want people to realise the importance of promoting diversity in books and the substantial impact this would have in our modern society. When watching my video, I hope that people can understand the significance of remodelling the standards of books. I want my poem to serve as a trigger to start striving towards fixing the inaccuracies of books and a start to encouraging inclusivity."

Runners up were 16-year-old Amaal Fawzi from Dean Close School, Cheltenham, who submitted a short story, and 17-year-old Elias Dayani from Caterham School, Surrey, who submitted a long-form prose submission. The winner received a MacBook Pro with Adobe suite installed, donated by Adobe. The two runners-up received Beats by Dre headphones and a Penguin audiobook package.

Lit in Colour is a campaign from Penguin and the Runnymede Trust which aims to support schools to diversify the teaching and learning of English literature. The Creative Student Prize prompted young people to explore their relationship with books and literature and was open to all young people aged 14 to 18 across the UK and Ireland, with entrants able to submit in a range of different formats including video, poetry and short stories. Guest judges included actor Zawe Aston, editor Mireille Harper, journalist Simran Randhawa, and author Yomi Sode.

Sharifah Grant, creative responsibility executive at PRH, said: “It's not often that students are prompted to explore their relationship with books outside the classroom. By launching the Creative Student Prize, we wanted to give young people a platform to explore the link between literature and their identity. We were blown away by the quality and wide variety of the entries – from poetry to TikTok videos. The juxtaposing nature of Emmanuella's submission stood out to us, combining spoken word and visual art in a way which brought to life her intimate relationship with books, and the impact they have on the world.”