Jacqueline Crooks

Jacqueline Crooks is a Jamaican-born British writer and community development practitioner. She grew up in 70s and 80s Southall, part of London’s migrant community carving out a space through music, culture and politics. Fire Rush, her first novel, was shortlisted for multiple prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Jhalak Prize. It won the PEN Open Book Award and the Paul Torday Memorial Prize. It was also chosen as an Observer Best Debut Novel of the Year. For her short stories, a selection of which was published in the collection The Ice Migration, she has been nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize and BBC National Short Story Award. Crooks is the recipient of a 2026 Eccles Institute & Hay Festival Global Writer’s Award. Sky City, her new novel, was published in August 2026.