Malika Booker


Malika Booker is a British poet, writer and artist. She is considered "a pioneer of the present spoken word movement" in the UK. Organizations for which she has worked include Arts Council England, the BBC, British Council, Wellcome Trust, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arvon, and Hampton Court Palace.

Biography

Malika Booker was born in London, UK, to Guyanese and Grenadian parents. She grew up in Guyana and returned to the UK aged 13, with her parents.
Booker began writing and performing poetry while studying anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She founded the poetry collective Malika's Kitchen, which also included Nick Makoha. Her first collection of poetry, Pepper Seed, was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize for best first full collection published in the UK and Ireland. She was the inaugural Poet In Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Booker's poem "Nine Nights", first published in The Poetry Review in autumn 2016, was shortlisted for Best Single Poem in the 2017 Forward Prize.

Awards

In 2019, Booker received a Cholmondeley Award for her outstanding contribution to poetry.

Selected works