Nikita Lalwani

Nikita Lalwani is a British novelist born in 1973 in Rajasthan, India, and raised in Cardiff, Wales. She studied at Exeter and has worked as a journalist and television producer. Her debut novel Gifted (2007, Viking) follows the daughter of a brilliant Indian academic family in Cardiff who is pushed relentlessly towards academic success, exploring the intersection of immigration, mathematics, and family duty. Gifted won the inaugural Desmond Elliott Prize in 2008, the prize's first year. Her second novel You (2012) is set in an open prison and explores identity, criminality, and belonging through a young woman of British-Indian heritage who infiltrates a prison as a documentary filmmaker. Lalwani is also an award-winning television documentary maker. She lives in London and has spoken widely about the experience of being a British-Indian writer navigating British literary culture.