Onjali Q. Raúf

Onjali Q Raúf (born February 1981[1]) is an English author and founder of the NGO Making Herstory,[2] a woman's rights organisation tackling the abuse and trafficking of women and girls in the UK and beyond. Her début novel published by Orion Children's Books, The Boy at the Back of the Class,[3] draws on her own experience delivering emergency aid convoys for refugee families surviving in Calais and Dunkirk.[4] Inspired by a Syrian mother and baby she encountered in a Calais refugee camp, it portrays the refugee crisis through the eyes of a child.[5] It was winner of the 2019 Blue Peter Book Award,[6] was the overall winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2019,[7][8] and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal Children's Book Award.[9] In the same year she was also shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour[10], and for breakthrough author in the BAMB (Books Are My Bag) Readers' Awards[11]. Her second book The Star Outside My Window covered hope and resilience in the face of domestic violence through the innocent eyes of 10-year-old girl[12]. On top of writing in publications such as the Guardian,[13] she is also a contributor to the BBC Radio 2 program Pause For Thought.[14]

Onjali Raúf in Dubai as part of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature

Raúf was named as one of the BBC 100 Women, a list and multi-format series of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world, for 2019[15]. In December 2019 she talked about "Why children are our most powerful hope for change" at TEDxLondonWomen[16] TEDx event.