The Malorie Blackman Impact Award 2024 winner is.... Nikesh Shukla
Nikesh is a novelist and screenwriter, currently working on a Spider-Man India comic book miniseries for Marvel as well as numerous television projects. Most recently, he released his first children’s book, called The Council Of Good Friends.
He is the author of Coconut Unlimited (shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award), Meatspace and the critically acclaimed The One Who Wrote Destiny. Nikesh is the editor of the bestselling essay collection, The Good Immigrant, which won the reader's choice at the Books Are My Bag Awards. He co-edited The Good Immigrant USA with Chimene Suleyman.
He is the author of three YA novels, Run, Riot (shortlisted for a National Book Award), The Boxer (longlisted for the Carnegie Medal) and Stand Up. Nikesh was one of Time Magazine’s cultural leaders, Foreign Policy magazine's 100 Global Thinkers and The Bookseller's 100 most influential people in publishing in 2016 and in 2017.
He is the co-founder of The Good Literary Agency and the Jhalak Prize. Nikesh’s memoir, Brown Baby: A Memoir Of Race, Family And Home was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize. He has also written a book on writing called Your Story Matters.
Nikesh wrote the award-winning short film, Two Dosas, a Channel 4 Comedy Lab called Kabadasses and has worked in numerous writer’s rooms both in the UK and US.
About Malorie Blackman
Malorie Blackman has written over seventy books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series, Thief and a science-fiction thriller, Chasing the Stars. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA-award-winning BBC production of Pig-Heart Boy and a Pilot Theatre stage adaptation by Sabrina Mahfouz of Noughts & Crosses. There is also a major BBC production of Noughts & Crosses, whose soundtrack was curated by Roc Nation (Jay-Z's entertainment company) as executive music producer. In 2005 Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children's books. In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children's literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children's Laureate. Malorie wrote for the Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses series, Crossfire, was published by Penguin Random House Children's in summer 2019.
