Malika Booker was born in London, UK,[1] to Guyanese and Grenadian parents. She grew up in Guyana and returned to the UK aged 13, with her parents.[5]
Booker began writing and performing poetry while studying anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.[5] She founded the poetry collective Malika's Kitchen, which also included Nick Makoha. She took part in The Complete Works mentoring programme. 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.[6] She was the inaugural Poet In Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company.[7]
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.[8]
She has written for radio and for the stage, and her work has appeared in journals and anthologies including Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry (1998), The India International Journal (2005), Ten New Poets (2010), Out of Bounds, Black & Asian Poets (2012), and New Daughters of Africa (2019).
Awards
In 2019, Booker received a Cholmondeley Award for her outstanding contribution to poetry.[9]
In 2020, Booker won the Forward Prize for "Best Single Poem – Written" for "The Little Miracles", published in Magma.[10] In 2023 she won that prize for that category again, which made her the first woman to win that prize for that category twice. Her 2023 win was for a poem called “Libation”, which the Poetry Review first published.[11]
Selected works
1998: Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women's Poetry. Ed. Karen McCarthy (The Women's Press)
