Onjali Rauf author page

Onjali Q. Raúf biography

Onjali Q. Raúf, born in February 1981 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is a British author and human rights activist. She is the founder of Making Herstory, an organisation dedicated to ending the abuse, trafficking, and enslavement of women and girls in the UK and beyond. Additionally, she established O’s Refugee Aid Team to support refugee families in Calais and Dunkirk through frontline aid efforts.

Onjali Rauf’s debut children’s novel, The Boy at the Back of the Class (2018), was inspired by her experiences delivering emergency aid to refugee families. The book portrays the refugee crisis through the eyes of a child and has received numerous accolades, including the 2019 Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story and the 2019 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal Children’s Book Award and the Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour.

Her subsequent works include The Star Outside My Window (2019), which addresses themes of hope and resilience in the face of domestic violence; The Day We Met the Queen (2020); The Night Bus Hero (2020); and The Great (Food) Bank Heist (2021), which explores food poverty in the UK. In 2021, she published The Lion Above the Door, inspired by the story of Wing Commander Tan Kay Hai, a decorated Singaporean pilot who flew with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Onjali Rauf’s contributions to literature and human rights were recognised in the 2022 New Year Honours, where she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to literature and women’s rights. In 2019, she was named one of the BBC 100 Women, a list celebrating inspiring and influential women from around the world.

• Author website and school visit details