Announcing the Jhalak Prize 2025 longlists: get ready to celebrate the best books by writers of colour!

2025 is the fifth year of our partnership with the Jhalak Prize, which celebrates books by writers of colour in the UK and Ireland. Our support ensures that you can celebrate and promote the longlisted, shortlisted and winning titles to your local community and beyond. Last year, we distributed point-of-sale kits to more than 150 bookshops, with digital assets going out to many hundreds more.

This year's Jhalak Prize longlists were announced on 18th March, including the inaugural Poetry Prize alongside the Prose and Children's & YA Prizes. Discover all 36 captivating books below, and download free digital assets for your site and social channels. Tag us @book_tokens and @jhalakprize, using #JhalakPrize25, so we can share!

This year's shortlists will be announced on 22nd April, while the winners will be announced on 4th June in a special ceremony at the London Library. To register for your free point-of-sale kit, please email marketing@booktokens.co.uk by 23rd March.

Don't forget to tell us about any plans you have for this year's Jhalak Prize, so we can include your activity in our press outreach.

The Jhalak Prize longlists 2025

The Jhalak Prose Prize

Allow Me to Introduce Myself, Onyi Nwabineli (Magpie, 9780861546879)
Determination, Tawseef Khan (Footnote, 9781804440902)
Dispersals, Jessica J. Lee (Hamish Hamilton, 9780241597125)
Everest, Ashani Lewis (Dialogue, 9780349703329)
Manny and the Baby, Varaidzo (Scribe, 9781915590268)
My Friends, Hisham Matar (Penguin Viking, 9780241409480)
Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman, N.S. Nuseibeh (Canongate, 9781838852634)
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre, 978139972634
The Rest of You, Maame Blue (Verve, 9780857308795)
The Strangers, Ekow Eshun (Hamish Hamilton, 9780241472026)
The Thirty Before Thirty List, Tasneem Abdur-Rashid (Zaffre, 9781838778187)
Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain, Aniefiok Ekpoudom (Faber, 9780571363254)

The Jhalak Children's & YA Prize

Bringing Back Kay-Kay, Dev Kothari (Walker, 9781529516043)
Flower Block, Lanisha Butterfield, ill. Hoang Giang (Puffin, 9780241611371)
It's Time to Hush and Say Goodnight, Chitra Soundar, ill. Sandhya Prabhat (Walker, 9781529501759)
King of Nothing, Nathanael Lessore (Hot Key, 9781471413247)
Little Dinosaurs, Big Feelings, Swapna Haddow, ill. Yiting Lee (Magic Cat, 9781915569233)
Mayowa and the Sea of Words, Chibundu Onuzo (Bloomsbury, 9781526660992)
Red Sky at Night, Poet's Delight, Alex Wharton, ill. Ian Morris (Firefly Press, 9781915444356)
The Boy to Beat the Gods, Ashley Thorpe (Usborne, 9781805075639)
The Gift, Jii & Nikos Parkes Trepkas (Tate Publishing, 9781849769068)
The Hidden Story of Estie Noor, Nadine Aisha Jassat, ill. Sandhya Prabhat (Orion, 9781510111608)
The Thread That Connects Us, Ayaan Mohamud (Usborne, 9781803704517)
These Stolen Lives, Sharada Keats (Scholastic, 9780702325120)

The Jhalak Poetry Prize

Adam, Gboyega Odubanjo (Faber, 9780571390403)
Agimat, Romalyn Ante (Chatto & Windus, 9781784745776)
amuk, Khairani Barokka (Nine Arches Press, 9781913437886)
Boiled Owls, Azad Ashim Sharma (Out-Spoken Press, 9781738412594)
Collected Poems, Mimi Khalvati (Carcanet, 9781800173330)
Emotional Support Horse, Claudine Toutoungi (Carcanet, 9781800174474)
Fantasia, Nisha Ramayya (Granta Poetry, 9781915051110)
Horse, Rushika Wick (Broken Sleep Books, 9781916938335)
Self-Portrait with Family, Amaan Hyder (Nine Arches Press, 9781916760080)
Signs, Music, Raymond Antrobus (Picador Poetry, 9781035020850)
The Tattoo Collector, Tim Tim Chen (Nine Arches Press, 9781916760042)
Top Doll, Karen McCarthy Woolf (Dialogue, 9780349703459)

Congratulations to the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year: Daydreams Bookshop!

We're delighted to usher in the new year with our announcement that the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year 2025 is Daydreams Bookshop in Milngavie, just outside Glasgow.

The award – now its fifth year – is given to new bookshops based, among other things, on their first full year of National Book Tokens sales and redemptions, both of which are a measure of how well they are engaging with local booklovers.

With the Booksellers Association (BA) reporting 45 independent bookshop openings in 2024, competition for the award is strong, and a reminder of the continued resilience and innovation of independent booksellers in the face of ongoing economic challenges.

Elaine, the owner of Daydreams, said:

"We are absolutely over the moon that our wee shop has won this national award – what a dream! We would like to thank our customers for choosing the gift of books and National Book Tokens for Christmas and we look forward to matching them with lots of lovely new books throughout 2025."

Lisa Bywater, Head of Marketing at National Book Tokens, said:

"Since they opened, Daydreams Bookshop have hit the ground running with the perfect offering for their community [...] Their strong sales and redemptions of National Book Tokens in such a short space of time show their commitment to helping their customers find the perfect book gifts for every type of reader." 

The team have won a trophy, a luxury champagne, wine and food hamper, and promotion to National Book Tokens' 400,000+ book-loving email subscribers and 90,000+ social media followers.

Find out more about the award

The Brilliant Bookshop Experience

In early summer 2024, we worked with Read for Good and The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop to run a pilot scheme designed to introduce to children from less affluent families the power of choice, carefully curated books and the unique pleasure of browsing a bookshop. The pilot was called The Brilliant Bookshop Experience.

The project took into account that the life-changing benefits of reading for pleasure increase when children and young people both have access to a diverse range of books, and feel free to choose their own reading materials without adult judgement. 

We created highly accessible pop-up bookshops in primary and secondary schools and provided guided trips to bookshops on the high street. Every Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupil in the seven participating schools was given a £10 National Book Token to spend on a book of their choosing, reaching over 1,400 children and young people.

We're now looking at ways this programme can grow, working with local bookshops, schools and publishers. Follow the link below to read the full report and register your interest in taking part.

Read the full report

Introducing our Presentation Card: offering new options and flexibility for local schools

We have introduced a new Presentation Card in response to schools and their requirements for prizegiving at the end of term, and throughout the year.

This new product incorporates a personalised or standard design National Book Tokens gift card into an A5 presentation card which can also include certificate-style information about the reward or award being presented. It offers greater flexibility and additional options to school customers looking to encourage reading for pleasure and give the gift of reading, in what is a very competitive market. What's more, there's no additional cost to personalise the Presentation Card.

As a bookseller, you can offer this new product to local schools. As with personalised gift cards, we will manage the production process for you, and the transaction will go through your bookshop account. Just let us know how many Presentation Cards the customer would like, and the values to load, and we will do the rest on your behalf.

The Presentation Card includes all the usual details that you would expect to see on a gift card, and is processed the same way at the till. To find out more, email Uzo Onuora or call 020 7421 4654.