Nikesh Shukla

Last updated

Nikesh Shukla
Born (1980-07-08) 8 July 1980 (age 43)
Nationality British
Occupation(s)Author
Screenwriter
Years active2010–present
Website nikesh-shukla.com

Nikesh Shukla FRSL (born 8 July 1980) is a British author and screenwriter. His writing focuses on race, racism, identity, and immigration. He is the editor of the 2016 collection of essays The Good Immigrant , which features contributions from Riz Ahmed, Musa Okwonga, Bim Adewunmi, and Reni Eddo-Lodge, among others. [1] [2] With Chimène Suleyman, he co-edited the 2019 follow-up collection called The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect On America. [3]

Contents

Early life and career

Shukla was born to Indian immigrants in the London suburb Harrow. [4] He attended Merchant Taylors' school in Northwood, leaving in 1996, [5] then Dr. Challoner's Grammar School.

Career

Literature

Shukla is the author of three novels: Coconut Unlimited (2010), [6] Meatspace (2014) [7] and The One Who Wrote Destiny (2018) and the council of good friends(2020)

He is also the author of two books for Young Adults: Run, Riot (2018) and The Boxer (2019).

In 2017 he one of was one of the co-founders of the Jhalak Prize awarded annually to British or British resident writers of colour. [8] [9] [10]

In 2019 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [11] He was a Rathbones Folio Prize Mentor in 2019–2020. [12]

Brown Baby, a memoir addressed to his young daughter, was published in 2021. [13] He hosts a podcast of the same name. [14]

Film

Shukla co-wrote the short film Two Dosas with Sarmad Masud. It starred Himesh Patel. After Danny Boyle awarded the film Best Short at the 2017 Shuffle Festival, [15] Boyle cast Patel in the title role of Jack in Yesterday (2019).

Journalism

Shukla has been a columnist for The Observer 's magazine supplement and The Pool.

Radio and podcasts

In January 2019, Shukla appeared in series 47 of the BBC Radio 4 show Great Lives , nominating Pakistani wrestler The Great Gama (1878–1960). [16]

Shukla hosted a podcast called The Subaltern podcast, in which he has conversations with writers about writing. [17] He also co-hosted a podcast called Meat Up, Hulk Out with sci-fi writer James Smythe. [18]

Selected works and publications

Books

Collections

Other work

Filmography

Honours

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Freedland</span> British journalist (born 1967)

Jonathan Saul Freedland is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for the Guardian. He presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, and has written a play, Jews. In Their Own Words, performed in 2022 at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kadija Sesay</span> British literary activist and writer (born 1962)

Kadija George, Hon. FRSL, also known as Kadija Sesay, is a British literary activist, short story writer and poet of Sierra Leonean descent, and the publisher and managing editor of the magazine SABLE LitMag. Her work has earned her many awards and nominations, including the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement in 1994, Candace Woman of Achievement in 1996, The Voice Community Award in Literature in 1999 and the Millennium Woman of the Year in 2000. She is the General Secretary for African Writers Abroad and organises the Writers' HotSpot – trips for writers abroad, where she teaches creative writing and journalism courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madeleine Thien</span> Canadian short story writer and novelist

Madeleine Thien is a Canadian short story writer and novelist. The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature has considered her work as reflecting the increasingly trans-cultural nature of Canadian literature, exploring art, expression and politics inside Cambodia and China, as well as within diasporic East Asian communities. Thien's critically acclaimed novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards for Fiction. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and the 2017 Rathbones Folio Prize. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aminatta Forna</span> Scottish writer

Aminatta Forna, OBE, is a British writer of Scottish and Sierra Leonean ancestry. Her first book was a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest (2002). Since then she has written four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018). In 2021 she published a collection of essays, The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion. (2021), which was a new genre for her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunny Singh (writer)</span> Indian-born academic and writer (born 1969)

Sunny Singh FRSL is an Indian-born academic and writer of fiction and creative non-fiction. She is Professor of Creative Writing and Inclusion in the Arts at London Metropolitan University.

Aliya Whiteley is a British novelist, short story writer and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabrina Mahfouz</span> British Egyptian poet, playwright, performer and writer

Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian poet, playwright, performer and writer from South London, England. Her published work includes poetry, plays and contributions to several anthologies her brother is mohamed Salah.

Sara Baume is an Irish novelist. She was named on Granta magazine's "Best of Young British Novelists" list 2023.

The Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour is an annual literary prize awarded to British or British-resident BAME writers. £1,000 is awarded to the sole winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holly Bourne</span> British author of young adult fiction

Holly Bourne is a British author of young adult fiction. She is the author of best-selling novel Am I Normal Yet? and several other critically acclaimed books. She also writes online on feminist issues and writes for The Mix, a charity-run advice website for under-25s.

Vinay Patel is a British-Indian screenwriter and playwright. He is best known for writing the BBC drama Murdered by My Father.

Sarmad Masud, also known as Sam Masud, is a British filmmaker whose 2017 movie My Pure Land was the first Urdu language film nominated by the UK for a Foreign Language Oscar award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onjali Q. Raúf</span> British author and the founder of the NGO Making Herstory

Onjali Qatara Raúf is a British author and the founder of the two NGOs: Making Herstory, a woman's rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK; and O's Refugee Aid Team, which raises awareness and funds to support refugee frontline aid organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Antrobus</span> British poet

Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer, who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry. In May 2019, Antrobus became the first poet to win the Rathbones Folio Prize for his collection The Perseverance, praised by chair of the judges as "an immensely moving book of poetry which uses his deaf experience, bereavement and Jamaican-British heritage to consider the ways we all communicate with each other." Antrobus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.

<i>The Good Immigrant</i> 2016 anthology of essays by British writers

The Good Immigrant is an anthology of twenty-one essays edited by Nikesh Shukla and first published by Unbound in the UK in 2016 after a crowd-funding campaign endorsed by celebrities. Written by British authors who identify as BAME, the essays concern race, immigration, identity, 'otherness', exploring the experience of immigrant and ethnic minority life in the United Kingdom from their perspective. Contributors include actor/musician Riz Ahmed, journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge, comedian Nish Kumar and playwright Vinay Patel. The compilation inspired the American sequel The Good Immigrant USA, published in 2017, which featured BAME authors from the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irenosen Okojie</span> Nigerian writer

Irenosen Iseghohi Okojie FRSL is a Nigerian-born short story and novel writer working in London. Her stories incorporate speculative elements and also make use of her West African heritage. Her first novel, Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award in 2016, and her story "Grace Jones" won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

Musa Okwonga is a British author, podcaster, and musician.

<i>Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats</i> 2019 non-fiction book

Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats is a 2019 book by the British academic Maya Goodfellow about immigration policy in the United Kingdom from the 1960s onwards, including the "hostile environment" policy of the 2010s. Goodfellow argues against the policy and in favour of increased rights for migrants. The book received a positive critical reception.

Chimene or ChimèneSuleyman is a writer from London of Turkish Cypriot descent, who has written on the politics of race and immigration in media including The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC and NPR, and co-edited The Good Immigrant USA in 2019.

Preti Taneja FRSL is a British writer, screenwriter and educator. She is currently professor of world literature and creative writing at Newcastle University. Her first novel, We That Are Young, won the Desmond Elliott Prize and was shortlisted for several awards, including the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Prix Jan Michalski, and the Shakti Bhatt Prize. In 2005, a film she co-wrote was shortlisted for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Taneja's second book, Aftermath, is an account of the 2019 London Bridge terror attack, and describes her knowledge of the victims, as well as her experience having previously taught the perpetrator of the attacks in a prison education programme. It won the Gordon Burn Prize for 2022.

References

  1. Parmar, Sandeep (22 September 2016). "The Good Immigrant review – an unflinching dialogue about race and racism in the UK". The Guardian.
  2. Sandhu, Sukhdev (2 October 2016). "The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla review – racial identity in the UK". The Observer.
  3. "The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America". Kirkus Reviews. 20 November 2018.
  4. Sethi, Anita (16 March 2019). "Nikesh Shukla: 'You keep going, you're persistent'". The Guardian.
  5. "Nikesh Shukla: 'If I'm writing for my daughters, I want them to know who I am'". The Guardian. 23 January 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  6. Holdsworth, Rachel (28 October 2010). "Book Review: Coconut Unlimited By Nikesh Shukla". Londonist.
  7. Housham, Jane (27 June 2014). "Meatspace by Nikesh Shukla – review". The Guardian.
  8. 1 2 Shukla, Nikesh (14 June 2021). "I turned down an MBE – I don't want an honour glorifying the British empire". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  9. "The Jhalak Prize". The Jhalak Prize. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  10. Kean, Danuta (5 January 2017). "New British books prize for BAME authors unveils inaugural longlist". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  11. 1 2 "Nikesh Shukla". Royal Society of Literature. 2019.
  12. "Announcing: the Rathbones Folio Mentors 2019-20". The Rathbones Folio Prize. 2019.
  13. Sandhu, Sukhdev. "Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla review - a memoir of race and family". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  14. Davies, Hannah J. "How to bring up children with joy and wonder - podcasts of the week". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  15. "Short Film Prize". Shuffle Festival. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  16. "Great Lives". RadioListings. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  17. "The Subaltern podcast". Nikesh Shukla.
  18. Shukla, Nikesh; Smythe, James. "Meat Up, Hulk Out". SoundCloud.
  19. "Human Rights Awards 2016: Shortlist". Liberty Human Rights. 13 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  20. "Global Thinkers 2016". foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  21. Abrams, Abigail; Lang, Cady; Gajanan, Mahita; Greenspan, Rachel E.; Davies, Wilder (7 February 2019). "12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists". Time. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  22. "The UK's CrimeFest 2019 Honors Shukla, Lippman, Rowling". Publishing Perspectives. 12 May 2019. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  23. "Run, Riot". National Book Awards. Retrieved 28 October 2019.