Nikita Lalwani FRSL is an Indian-born Welsh novelist. She was born in Kota, Rajasthan, and raised in Cardiff, Wales. [1] Her work has been translated into sixteen languages.
Nikita Lalwani FRSL is an Indian-born Welsh novelist. She was born in Kota, Rajasthan, and raised in Cardiff, Wales. [1] Her work has been translated into sixteen languages.
She studied English at University of Bristol. [2]
Her first book, Gifted (2007), was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize [3] and shortlisted for the Costa Book Award for First Novel. [4] Lalwani was nominated as Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. [5] In June 2008, she won the inaugural Desmond Elliott Prize. [6] She donated the £10,000 prize to Liberty, a human rights advocacy nonprofit. [7]
Lalwani's second book, The Village, was published in 2012 [8] and was selected as one of eight titles for the Fiction Uncovered Prize in 2013. [9]
Lalwani has contributed to The Guardian , the New Statesman and The Observer . She has also written for AIDS Sutra , [10] an anthology exploring the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS in India. [9]
In 2013, Lalwani was a book judge for the Orwell Prize. [11] In 2018, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [9] She was later a judge for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award in 2019. [12] In the same year, she contributed to the anthology Resist: Stories of Uprising. [13] [14] Her novel You People, [15] set in a West London pizzeria where most of the staff are illegal immigrants, was published in 2020 by Penguin [16] and in 2021 by McSweeney's USA. [17] [18]
Lalwani co-wrote three episodes of the BBC One/Amazon Studios series The Outlaws , including two episodes with Stephen Merchant and one with Jess Bray. [19]
She also wrote the screenplay for the romantic comedy Picture This for Amazon Studios, [20] starring Simone Ashley, and wrote an episode of crime thriller Under Salt Marsh for Sky Studios. [21]
Written by Stephen Merchant and Nikita Lalwani
Written by Stephen Merchant and Nikita Lalwani
