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Lalwani, Nikita

Nikita Lalwani

Elected: 2018

Year of birth: 1973

Nikita Lalwani‘s work has been translated into sixteen languages. Her first novel, Gifted – the story of a child prodigy of Indian origin growing up in Wales – was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the inaugural Desmond Elliott Prize for Fiction. Her second, The Village, was modelled on a real-life ‘prison village’ in northern India, and won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her third novel You People (2020), follows Tuli (the proprietor of an Italian restaurant) and his employee Shan who, having fled the Sri Lankan civil war, is desperate to find his family.

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Fellowship Election Process​

Fellows are nominated by peers and elected by our Council of writers – our governing Board. Being elected a Fellow of the RSL is a lifetime honour. This role gives them the opportunity to support other writers, readers and the future of literature. The RSL connects writers in the Fellowship to one another, and to a wider readership.