Nikita Lalwani is a novelist born in Kota, Rajasthan

Kota, Rajasthan

Kota , formerly known as Kotah, is a city in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located south of state capital, Jaipur. Situated on the banks of Chambal River, the city is the trade centre for an area in which millet, wheat, rice, pulses, coriander and oilseeds are grown; industries...

 in 1975 and raised in Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. She studied English at Bristol University and her first book, Gifted

Gifted (novel)

Gifted is the debut novel by author Nikita Lalwani longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. It was first published in 2007 by Viking.-Plot introduction:...

, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

 and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award

Costa Book Awards

The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....

. She was also nominated as Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. In June 2008 she won the inaugural Desmond Elliot Prize for Fiction. She donated the £10,000 prize to human rights campaigners, Liberty

Liberty (pressure group)

Liberty is a pressure group based in the United Kingdom. Its formal name is the National Council for Civil Liberties . Founded in 1934 by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith , the group campaigns to protect civil liberties and promote human rights...

. Lalwani has also contributed to The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, The New Statesman

The New Statesman

The New Statesman is an award-winning British sitcom of the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the Conservative government of the time...

and The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

and also recently written for AIDS Sutra

AIDS Sutra

AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India is an anthology of writing telling the human stories behind HIV-AIDS in India. The book has been published in collaboration with Avahan, the India Aids initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...

, an anthology exploring the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS in India. She lives in North West London.

External links

• http://www.nikitalalwani.com