Books by Rebecca F Kuang, Katherine Rundell, Hiba Noor Khan and Robert Tregoning have been awarded this year’s Indie Book Awards.
The awards are curated by independent bookshops, and run as part of Independent Bookshop Week (IBW), which is organised by the Booksellers Association from 15th-22nd June. They celebrate the best paperbacks of the summer across fiction, non-fiction, children’s fiction and picture books.
The Fiction category winner is Yellowface (The Borough Press) by Rebecca F Kuang, which also won Fiction Book of the Year 2024 at the British Book Awards, while Katherine Rundell has been awarded the Non-Fiction Prize for The Golden Mole: and Other Vanishing Treasure (Faber & Faber).
Winner of the Children’s Fiction category is Safiyyah’s War (Andersen Press) by Hiba Noor Khan, described as an extraordinary novel set in occupied Paris which finds a girl engaged in dangerous resistance work after her father is arrested by the Nazis. The Picture Book prize went to The Dress in the Window (Oxford University Press) by Robert Tregoning and illustrated by Pippa Curnick. It was described by the judges as “an uplifting, elegant story of self-love, acceptance and embracing your true self, told in elegant rhyme”.
Kuang said: “What an honour to have won this award! Indie booksellers are the backbones of this industry, the ones getting books into readers’ hands, and I am eternally grateful for your support. It means a lot to me that Yellowface, which is so critical about the way we select and talk about books, has received such a warm welcome.
“I take this to indicate that we are all frustrated with a publishing ecosystem that commodifies identity, that limits representation to one or two exhausting examples, that tells marginalised authors the only thing interesting about them is their pain. So, let’s cheers to the readers and booksellers and book lovers who are chasing stories not to confirm our own presumptions, but because we care about what someone not like us has to say.”
Robert Tregoning said it was “no coincidence” that The Dress in the Window’s love at-first-sight moment happens outside an independent shop, “which sits on a high street, beautifully brought to life by Pippa Curnick and lined with other independent shops”.
“I hope that The Dress in the Window captures some of the magic that indie shops bring to communities. I also hope that, like many of the stories I write, it helps people to feel seen, to feel understood and to feel celebrated! I can’t thank the Indie Book Awards enough for bringing even more sparkle to the celebration,” he said.
Pippa Curnick, illustrator of The Dress in the Window, said she is “absolutely thrilled” the book won the award, adding: “It fills me with joy to know that it is being received with such love, and to have the support of independent bookshops means so, so much.”
Rundell said of her win: “This is such an enormous delight—thank you so much! I owe so much of my career to the championing of independent bookshops: to the generosity, imagination and passion of indie booksellers. Indie bookshops are, by far, my favourite kind of shop: a place where you can go in looking for an idea, or a solution, or even a mood, and be met with the knowledge and nuance of booksellers, and the perfect book. This is a real honour. Thank you.”
Talya Baldwin, illustrator of The Golden Mole, added: “I’m delighted that The Golden Mole has won this brilliant award. Katherine is an enormously talented writer and it was a real privilege to be part of the project. I have loved working on it and learning about each of the animals, and will never look at a swift in quite the same way again.”
Hiba Noor Khan said: “Winning the Indie Book Award still has not sunk in at all for me… and I’m not sure that it ever will! This is such a special award, independent bookshops are like treasures, both for authors as well as for the wider communities they nourish. To have been voted as the winner by indie booksellers is just the most immense honour, one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I am so grateful to each and every one of you who recognised Safiyyah along with all that she represents. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. For all your support and encouragement, and for pressing this book of hope into the hands of readers. I am awed, astonished, overjoyed and forever grateful!”
The judging panel of the awards’ Adult categories consisted of booksellers Tim Batcup (Cover-to-Cover), Yasmine Srouji (Bookbag), Claire Grint (Cogito Books), Nadia Jones (South London Gallery Bookshop) and Rebecca Roberts (Night Owl Books). The Children’s categories were judged by Jenny Eagles (Owl and Pyramid Bookshop), Helen Tamblyn-Saville (Wonderland Bookshop), Gordon Stewart (The Wedale Bookshop), Denise Evans-Barr (Custom House Bookshop) and Keira Andrews (Reading Roots).
