Malika Booker

Malika Booker was born in London to Guyanese and Grenadian parents. Growing up in Guyana Malika returned to the UK aged 13, with her parents.
She began writing and performing poetry while studying anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Malika founded the poetry collective Malika’s Kitchen, which also included Nick Makoha. 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. She was the inaugural Poet In Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
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.