With thanks, the judges of the 2025 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award:

Johanna Thomas-Corr (chair)

Johanna Thomas-Corr is the chief literary critic for the Times and Sunday Times. Her articles and reviews have also appeared in The Observer, the Financial Times, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard, and she has been a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize for Fiction, The British Book Awards and The Sky Arts Prize for Literature.

Caleb Femi

Caleb Femi is a writer, director and photographer. His debut collection Poor (Penguin Press, 2020) won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and added to AQA’s English Literature GCSE syllabus. He also directs film, TV and fashion projects internationally. He has directed TV episodes for HBO, the BBC and Netflix, as well as commercials, high-fashion films and runway shows for brands such as Louis Vuitton, TikTok, Bottega Veneta, Dior, Mulberry and NCS. The Young People’s Laureate for London from 2016-2018, his next work, The Wickedest, will be published by Fourth Estate in September 2024.

Esther Freud

Esther Freud is the author of ten novels. Her first, Hideous Kinky, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet. After publishing her second book she was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists and her books have been translated into thirteen languages. Other titles include The Sea House, Mr Mac and Me and I Couldn’t Love You More. Her first full length play, Stitchers, was produced in London in 2018, and she has also recently published the children’s book: Enchanted Book. Her latest novel is My Sister and Other Lovers.

Graham Norton

Graham Norton is a multi-award-winning presenter, broadcaster, author, and comedian, and one of the UK’s most treasured personalities. Across his illustrious career, Graham has won nine BAFTA awards including Best Entertainment Performance and Best Entertainment Programme, a National Television Award in 2023, a Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards in 2017, plus an International Emmy. Alongside presenting 32 series of ‘The Graham Norton Show’, Graham has commentated for the UK on the Eurovision Song Contest since 2009. Graham is the author of five novels and two memoirs, winning numerous awards and gaining bestseller status, and his latest novel Frankie
won the Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.

Sathnam Sanghera

Sathnam Sanghera has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards for both his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material. His Sunday Times bestselling Empireland (2021) inspired acclaimed 2-part Channel 4 documentary ‘Empire State of Mind’ and won Book of the Year at The British Book Awards. His children’s book Stolen History (2023) was a No. 1 bestseller. A fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, he is also a decorated journalist and broadcaster.

Lea Ypi

Lea Ypi holds the Ralph Miliband Chair in Politics and Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her first trade book, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History won the Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Costa Biography Award. It is translated into over thirty languages. Her second book Indignity: A Life Reimagined is published on 4th September, 2025.