Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is the author of the highly acclaimed novel When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton), winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the overall prize. It was previously named one of the best debut novels of 2022 by the UK Observer. She is from Trinidad and Tobago and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where she is now a Creative and Critical Writing PhD student. Her work has been published in Moko Magazine, Small Axe, PREE, Callaloo and Anomaly among others, and shortlisted for Small Axe Literary Competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize.