Launched in 2019, the Mo Siewcharran Prize, named in memory of Nielsen BookData’s former director of marketing and communications, was co-founded and sponsored by her husband John Seaton and aims to nurture talent from underrepresented backgrounds writing in English.

With Nielsen BookData as co-sponsors, it is run as part of Hachette UK’s The Future Bookshelf and is hosted by different divisions of the publisher each year.

For 2025, the prize will be hosted by Trapeze, an imprint of Orion Books, and we are looking for non-fiction writing under the theme Reclaiming History.

2019: The first prize was hosted by Dialogue

2020: No prize because of the pandemic

2021: Little, Brown/Abacus

2022: Quercus (Crime & Thriller)

2023: Hachette Children’s (Picture Books)

2024: Hodderscape (Science Fiction & Fantasy)

2019: The Giant Dark, Sarvat Hasin (published by Dialogue Books July 2019) 

2021: He Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Santanu Bhattacharya

2022: The Search for Othella Savage, Foday Mannah (publishing in 2025 with Quercus)

2023: Kid Rex, Mayo Agard-Olubo