Onjali Q. Raúf

Onjali Q Raúf (born February 1981[1]) is a best-selling English author and the founder of the NGO Making Herstory,[2] a woman's rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK and beyond.

Onjali Raúf in Dubai as part of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature

Background

Raúf is of Bangladeshi heritage. Her work is informed in part by her experiences of racism in childhood. "When I started being called Paki, I started to feel [my difference]. I wondered: why is there no one who looks like me in the books? So I wanted to write those characters,” she said in a 2019 interview with The Guardian.[3]

Career

Raúf's début children's novel published by Orion Children's Books, The Boy at the Back of the Class,[4] draws on her own experience delivering emergency aid convoys for refugee families surviving in Calais and Dunkirk.[5] Inspired by a Syrian mother and baby she encountered in a Calais refugee camp, it portrays the refugee crisis through the eyes of a child.[6] It was a Sunday Times Bestseller, winner of the 2019 Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story,[7][8] overall winner of the 2019 Waterstones Children's Book Prize,[9][10] and nominated for the Carnegie Medal Children's Book Award.[11] In the same year she was also shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour[12] and for breakthrough author in the BAMB (Books Are My Bag) Readers' Awards.[13]

Her second book The Star Outside My Window covered hope and resilience in the face of domestic violence through the innocent eyes of 10-year-old girl.[14] This was shortlisted for the inaugural Diverse Book Awards,[15] and 2020 British Book Awards: Books of the Year.[16] It also made the longlist of the UK Literacy Association Book awards.[17] On top of writing in publications such as The Guardian,[18] she is also a contributor to the BBC Radio 2 program Pause For Thought.[19]

Raúf was named as one of the BBC 100 Women, a list and multi-format series of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world, for 2019.[20] In December 2019 she talked about "Why children are our most powerful hope for change" at TEDxLondonWomen[21] TEDx event.

List of works
  • The Boy at the Back of the Class (2019)
  • The Star Outside My Window (2019)
  • The Day We Met the Queen (2020)
  • The Night Bus Hero (2020)

Awards

References
  1. "Onjali Qatara RAUF - Personal Appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  2. "Our Team | Making Herstory". makingherstory.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  3. Khan, Coco (2019-05-01). "Onjali Rauf: 'My mother said publishing was a white world, but I should always try'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  4. Raúf, Onjali Q. (2018-07-10). The Boy at the Back of the Class. Curnick, Pippa. London, England. ISBN 9781510105010. OCLC 1013483296.
  5. "Helping nine-year-olds understand refugees". BBC News. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  6. Onjali Q. Rauf - The Boy At the Back of the Class - Hachette Children's Group.
  7. "The Blue Peter Book Awards celebrate the best authors, most creative illustrators and the greatest reads for children". www.booktrust.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  8. "Blue Peter Book Awards 2019". www.booktrust.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  9. "Waterstones Children's Book Prize". www.waterstones.com. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  10. Flood, Alison (2019-03-22). "Gripping refugee tale wins Waterstones children's book prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  11. "The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards". www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-03-12.
  12. "Indies dominate Jhalak Prize shortlist | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  13. "Obama, Porter and Thunberg shortlisted for BAMB reader awards | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  14. Raúf, Onjali Q. (2019). The star outside my window. London: Orion Children's Books. ISBN 978-1-5101-0515-7. OCLC 1126253200.
  15. "Carty-Williams, Shukla and Malik shorylisted for first Diverse Book Awards | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  16. "British Book Awards 2020: Books of the Year shortlists revealed | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  17. "UKLA Book Awards 2021 Longlists". UKLA. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  18. "Onjali Rauf | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  19. "BBC Radio 2 - Pause For Thought, Vanessa's Pause For Thought: Onjali Rauf on Courage". BBC. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  20. "BBC 100 Women 2019: Who is on the list?". 2019-10-16. Retrieved 2019-10-21.
  21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3wgHkfMorM. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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