Jamila Gavin

Jamila Gavin MBE FRSL (born 1941) is a British children's author renowned for works exploring Indian and multicultural themes, including the Surya trilogy and Coram Boy, which won the 2000 Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award. Born in Mussoorie, India, to an Indian father and English mother, she moved to England at age 11, worked at the BBC, and has received honors such as Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2015) and MBE (2024) for services to children's literature; she recently won the 2025 Nero Book Award for Children's Fiction with My Soul, A Shining Tree. She remains active and alive as of 2026.