Iqbal Hussain
Iqbal Hussain was born into a large, working-class Muslim family in Lancashire. Having studied Mathematics at a small Welsh university, far removed from the cobbled streets of his childhood, he chose to earn a living with words.
He worked as a journalist for many years, for publications ranging from The Guardian’s Education Supplement to The Young Telegraph.
Iqbal is an alumni of the inaugural London Writers' Awards 2018, launched by the London writing agency Spread the Word. His short story Home from Home won Gold in the Creative Future Writers’ Awards 2019. In 2020, he was one of fifteen writers from underrepresented backgrounds to be included in the anthology Mainstream, published by Inkandescent, with his Pakistani-set ghost story The Reluctant Bride. In April 2021, Iqbal was one of seven writers selected for the Megaphone mentoring scheme for writers of children’s and young adult fiction.
Iqbal;s first adult novel, Northern Boy, a coming-of-age story about what it feels like to be a “butterfly among the bricks” was published by Unbound in June 2024.