Northern Bookshelf with Okechukwu Nzelu

Okechukwu Nzelu won a 2015 Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North and is based in Manchester.

His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, won a Betty Trask Award; it was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Polari First Book Prize, and longlisted for the Portico Prize. In 2021, it was selected for the Kingston University Big Read. His second novel, Here Again Now was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and longlisted for the Polari Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Diverse Book Awards. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

In conversation with Anna Disley