Ahead of the winner announcement, (which takes place on 25th May), we invite you to join us at The London Library for drinks, discussion and chat. Hear from Jhalak Prize judge Haleh Agar and Jhalak Children's & Young Adult Prize judge Maisie Chan in conversation with Yassmin Abdel-Magied and hear readings from some of the shortlisted authors, including Travis Alabanza, Angela Hui, Paterson Joseph, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Sheena Patel, and Anita Pati. 

Spotlight on the Jhalak Prize with Guy Gunaratne and Sarah Shaffi at the Bath Festival - https://bathfestivals.org.uk/the-bath-festival/event/spotlight-on-the-jhalak-prize/

https://dai-heidelberg.de/de/veranstaltungen/ayanna-lloyd-banwo-54785/

Making the leap from short fiction to a book-length manuscript isn’t just about the number of words and pages — it requires a different understanding of the trajectories of plot, character, and theme, and a different kind of narrative pacing. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, author of the novel When We Were Birds, shares tips and techniques for getting your novel-in-progress to the final chapter.

Jan Carson (The Raptures) and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (When We Were Birds) read from their new novels exploring the unstable boundaries between this life and the next. Hosted by Hadassah K. Williams. In partnership with the British Council and the Belfast International Arts Festival.

Join us at Review Bookshop for a conversation between myself and Ashish Ghadiali, a filmmaker, writer and activist, the Director of Radical Ecology, Co-Chair of the Black Atlantic Innovation Network and a frequent contributor to The Guardian and The Observer. Book tickets here.

Join author Kevin Jared Hosein in conversation with Ayanna Lloyd Banwo to discuss his stunning new novel Hungry Ghosts - a mesmerising book about violence, religion, family and class, rooted in the wild and pastoral landscape of colonial central Trinidad. Book tickets here

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Bobby Palmer and Louisa Young -three celebrated literary fiction writers inspire magic, hope and love in the face of stories of acute grief and loss. Book tickets here

Online festival. Details TBA announced soon.

https://www.miamibookfair.com

Panel: Black Love
Saturday 19  | 16:00 – 17:15 | BGAC Theatre
Panel discussion celebrating Black love in all its essence from familial, community, friendship, romantic, nature and self with Ayanna Lloyd Banwo‘s When We Were Birds,Jendella Benson‘s Hope and Glory, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn‘s Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? and Okechukwu Nzelu’s Here Again Now. Chaired by Maame Blue (author of Bad Love). BSL Interpreted. Tickets here

Visiting writer at Arvon’s Residential Writing Week: Fiction with tutors Tom Lee and Nell Stevens. More information here

This year’s annual Hiscox Debut Authors slot which has welcomed authors in the early part of their careers including Bernardine Evaristo, Stacey Halls, Barney Norris and Claire Fulleron will champion the emerging talent of Ayanna Banwo and Bobby Palmer, talking about their debut novels, ‘When We Were Birds’ and ‘Isaac and the Egg’ respectively. Palmer’s ‘Isaac and the Egg’ is, according to novelist Patrick Gale, “a mad, sad, funny debut” in which a young man walks into the woods on the worst morning of his life and discovers something that will change everything for ever. While love looms large in Lloyd Banwo’s ‘When We Were Birds’, the novel is also a ghost story: the two central characters are a gravedigger and a woman who, so her grandmother tells her, has been transformed from a crow to escort the dead into the afterlife. Book tickets here

In conversation with Eloghosa Osunde, Okwiri Oduor, and Anderson Tepper (Brooklyn Public Library). More info here

Two haunting new novels explore the mesmerising and mythic

In Louisa Young’s novel Twelve Months and a Day Rasmus loses Jay and Roisin loses Nico.  But have they really?  And what does the apparent loss of their lovers mean for the future?  In Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s first novel When We Were Birds Darwin is looking for his dead father on the streets of a Trinidadian town, and Yejide is learning from her dying mother how to commune with spirits.  Louisa and Ayanna will be discussing their magical new novels with journalist Georgina Godwin. Book tickets here

Debut writers Kasim Ali and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo discuss their work and their experiences of being first-time novelists. Book here: https://www.newhamwordfestival.org/events/kasim-ali-and-ayanna-lloyd-banwo-in-conversation/

Reading and conversation between Ayanna Lloyd Banwo and Ashish Ghadilali as part of a public gathering focused on environmental justice, held on the occasion of the presentation of Sun & Sea.This public gathering brings together interdisciplinary artists, campaigners and thinkers to address questions of environmental justice and the role of culture in creating it. Book tickets here

The Five Dials summer issue is packed with writing by the most interesting, strange and wonderful debuts of 2022. Come join us at the Peckham Pelican for an evening of readings and general festivity. Featuring Travis Alabanza, Jay Gao, Holly Hopkins, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Missouri Williams and more. Get tickets here

Lisa Allen-Agostini, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, with The Bread The Devil Knead, will be taking to the stage with fellow authors Sophie Jai, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo and Costa Book of the Year 2020 prize winner Monique Roffey (chair). And with a little help from a Jamaican sister (Yvonne Bailey-Smith, currently shortlisted for the Authors Club Best First Novel Award) this cocktail of readings, chat and Q&A will be an unmissable blast.