Arifa Akbar | |
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![]() Akbar in 2022 | |
Born | August 1972 London, England |
Alma mater | |
Years active | 2001–present |
Employer | The Guardian |
Arifa Akbar is an English writer who has been chief theatre critic at The Guardian since 2019. She previously served as literary editor of The Independent and before that, a news reporter. Her memoir Consumed: A Sister's Story (2021) was shortlisted for a number of accolades.
Akbar was born in London, England, and was three years old when she went to Pakistan with her parents, who had hoped to resettle there. [1] She spent the first few years of her life moving between London and Lahore, until settling in the former city in 1977. Her family lived in an abandoned building on Hampstead High Street before finding a flat on Fellows Road, where Akbar grew up. [2]
Akbar and her sister Fauzia attended St Paul's Church of England Primary School in Primrose Hill and then Parliament Hill School. [2] She graduated from the University of Edinburgh. [3]
Akbar joined The Independent in 2001, working as a news reporter. Akbar then became an arts correspondent and was promoted to literary editor of the publication, a position she held until 2016. [4] She subsequently served as head of content at Unbound [5] and arts editor of Tortoise Media. She was also founding editor of Boundless Magazine. In 2019, Akbar was appointed chief theatre critic at The Guardian . [6]
In 2020, Sceptre (a Hodder & Stoughton imprint) acquired the rights to publish Akbar's debut non-fiction book Consumed: A Sister's Story in 2021. [7] The memoir charts the turbulent life of Akbar's late older sister Fauzia, who suddenly passed away from tuberculosis in 2016. [8] Consumed: A Sister's Story was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize, the Costa Book Award for Biography, and the Ackerley Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.
Akbar reunited with Sceptre for the publication in 2025 of her second non-fiction book Wolf Moon: A Woman's Journey Into the Night. [9] Containing vignettes of her relationship with night time, [10] [11] she said the book "began as a singular question: Why am I afraid of darkness?" [12]
Year | Award | Category | Title | Result | Ref. |
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2021 | Jhalak Prize | Consumed: A Sister's Story | Shortlisted | [13] | |
Baillie Gifford Prize | Longlisted | [14] | |||
2022 | Costa Book Awards | Biography | Shortlisted | [15] | |
Ackerley Prize | Shortlisted | [16] | |||