Onjali's
(HER)STORY
She went to schools in Tower Hamlets and Newham, London. At age 15, she met a homeless man who she later came to know as "Thomas", and who inspired her to write a certain story about a Night Bus Hero ...
Both during and after her studies, Onjali worked a total of 17 jobs (including working on a sweet trolley at Victoria Station!) before becoming a published author. But during her lunch breaks and on her journeys to work, she continued to write her stories ...
Onjali was born in February 1981 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Two years later, she became the big sister to a little baby brother called Zakariah (who, after many years of fighting over He-Man, She-Ra, and the remote control, turned out to be The Best Little Brother on Earth). All of Onjali's books are dedicated to her mother and Zak.
She went on to study at George Monoux College, Walthamstow, but after failing to get the grades she needed to study History at Oxford University, she studied English Literature at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales instead. But! Her dream of studying at Oxford didn't end there! After another two attempts, she was accepted onto the university's Masters programme for Women's Studies. (Yeahy!)
5 JULY 2011: Following a family tragedy, Onjali established a book club for what was soon to become her own women's rights organisation, Making Herstory. A name that was born many years before, during an argument she had with her GCSE History teacher about the missing her-stories of women in the His-Story books...
2 JULY 2015: After spending nine years writing and submitting a draft of Book I of The Legend of Arturo's Chocolate (a trilogy) to agents across the UK, Onjali received an email from an agent welcoming her to submit the full manuscript. That agent's name was Silvia Molteni of Peters Fraser & Dunlop agency, London... The rest as they say, is literary herstory...
2015-2017: Whilst Silvia was busy trying to sell the chocolate trilogy, Onjali launched her refugee aid works for what was later to become O's Refugee Aid Team, and survived two life-saving surgeries. She went on to write The Boy at the Back of the Class in 2017 after meeting a very special baby in the refugee camps, and whilst in recovery from her second major surgery.
2017-2019: Onjali submitted the first chapters of The Boy at the Back of the Class in 2017. It was commissioned by Lena McCauley of Hachette and published in 2018. In 2019, it won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Children's Book Award. Since then, it has won many awards including the Sakura Medal 2020 (Japan), the Cowbell Award 2021(Switzerland) and the Prix Janusz Korczak Prize 2022 (France).
2019-2022: Following The Boy at the Back of the Class, Onjali published:
- The Day We Met the Queen (2019)
- The Star Outside My Window (2019)
- The Night Bus Hero (2020)
- The Great Food Bank Heist (2021)
- The Lion Above the Door (2021) and
- Hope on The Horizon (Wren and Rook 2022).
In 2021, she also became a Writer-in-Residence for BookTrust for six months.
2022: Onjali was nominated for an MBE for services to Women's Rights and Children's Literature in the New Year's Honours List 2022. After much debate, she accepted the award on behalf of all who nominated her, her great-grandfather, and her Supremely Awesome Mum. She received the award from Prince William, dressed in the colours of her beloved nani's wedding dress.
2023: Onjali's first ever collection of seven unique fairy tales written whilst travelling to different parts of the world, was released in October 2023. She had planned to release them one tale at a time, but is saving that dream for another time, and another seven stories...
May 2023: Onjali's first ever play, The Hero Next Door, written for, and in collaboration with, FaceFront Inclusive Theatre, premiered at the Dugdale Centre before embarking on a six-week UK-wide tour, ending at the infamous Stratford East Theatre. Directed by Annie Smol MBE and Jon French, the play centred on the story of a refugee boy from Eritrea named Musa, and a former WWII evacuee living next door who finds himself in grave danger... Read more HERE.
February 2024: The world premiere of the play, The Boy at the Back of the Class, launched at the Rose Theatre, London, before embarking on a tour of theatres on major cities across England. Directed by Monique Touko, written by Nick Ahad, and produced by Rose Theatre and the Children's Theatre Partnership, it was seen by over 20,000 children – and even led to a marriage (but that's a story for another time)!
2024: Onjali ended the year with the publication of The Letter with the Golden Stamp, a celebration of the Royal Mail and Young Carers, and her first ever picture book, illustrated by the amazing Pippa Curnick, The Girl at the Front of the Class ...
2025: Inspired by her own nani (maternal grandma), Shelley Shaista Khanom, and her step-in nani, Juleka Rahman (who sadly passed away in the spring of 2025), The Game I Will Never Forget marks the eternal relationship between a grandmother and a grandchild, and the enduring memories we share, no matter what life's games throw at us.
February to May 2026: Following the success of the first tour of The Boy at the Back of the Class, the play re-launches at the Rose Theatre, followed by a UK-wide tour which sees it gracing the stages of the Southbank Centre in London, to those of Cardiff, Edinburgh, Blackpool, Cornwall, Manchester and many more cities. By its final show, it is confirmed that over 100,000 theatre-goers have seen it.
12th April 2026: To Onjali's great surprise and unending delight, The Boy at the Back of the Class WINS the Olivier award for Best Family Show, as adapted by Nick Ahad. However, the speech made by Onjali on behalf of Nick was NOT aired by the BBC during the delayed 'live' airing, possibly due to a combination of both its condemnation of the UK government in its treatment of refugees, and Onjali's dress(!), designed by Dulcie Best, which had #FreePalestine and #RefugeesWelcome hand-embroidered across it. Not to worry! You can still watch the whole speech HERE.
...
More to Come (GW)
...so stay tuned!
