Catherine Johnson
Catherine Johnson is an award winning, bestselling author. Her books have been nominated for the Carnegie Award, shortlisted for the YA Book Prize, the UKLA awards and many others. Her work has won the Little Rebels award for Freedom, and the Young Quills award for historical fiction with Sawbones, both books are widely read in schools.
She has written many non fiction biographies of famous - and should be famous - Black figures in history, including Too Liberty about Thomas Alexandre Dumas, Queen of Freedom about Nanny of the Maroons, Journey Back To Freedom about Oluadah Equiano, Dance of Resistance about Josephine Baker, and the bestselling Race To The Frozen North about the life of Mathew Henson.
Her radio work has been shortlisted for the Prix Italia and The Tinniwood Award and includes an episode of the BBC series The Medici.
Her work in film and television includes co writing Bullet Boy, Ashley Walters' film debut. And her televsion work ranges from continuing drama, notably Holby City, to historical docudramas. She was commissioned to dramatise Miranda Kaufmann's Black Tudors.
Her next book is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers, and a biography of Jamaican polymath Francis Williams.
She has also written for adults, set in the 18th century among the veterans of the Black regiments of the War of American Independence, set in London.
Her long career in literature has seen her work at the legendary centre for literature development in Dalston, Centerprise, as Writer in Residence in Holloway Prison, teaching at Kingston, London Metropolitan and City Universities, and mentoring many of todays' new and up and coming children's writers.
She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
2025 winner: Sita Brahmachari
2024 winner: Nikesh Shukla
2023 winner: Malorie Blackman
