Two UEA Creative Writers have been included on this year’s shortlists for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Anjali Joseph (pictured) is nominated in the South Asia and Europe Best First Book category for her novel ‘Saraswati Park’, while Helon Habila is nominated in the Africa Best Book
category for his third novel ‘Oil On Water’. Anjali was born in Bombay in 1978 and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, before graduating
from the UEA Creative Writing MA with a distinction in 2008. She has taught English at the Sorbonne, and currently teaches on UEA’s undergraduate Creative Writing programme while completing her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing. Last year she was included in The Daily Telegraph’s list of Britain’s best 20 novelists under the age of 40.
Helon studied Literature at the University of Jos in Nigeria, and won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2001. His first novel ‘Waiting for an Angel’ was published in 2002 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Africa Region, Best First Book category. He was a Writing Fellow at UEA in 2004 before studying for his PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, from which he graduated in 2008. He is currently teaching Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his family.