Onjali Q. Raúf

Onjali Q. Raúf (born 1981 in Newcastle upon Tyne) is a British writer of children's books and a human-rights activist of Bangladeshi heritage. A graduate of Aberystwyth and Oxford, she founded Making Herstory, a charity working against women's abuse and trafficking, and O's Refugee Aid Team. Her debut novel, The Boy at the Back of the Class (2018), told the story of a Syrian refugee child through the eyes of his classmates and won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize in 2019. She has since published The Star Outside My Window (2019), The Night Bus Hero (2020), The Lion Above the Door (2021), The Letter with the Golden Stamp (2024), The Girl at the Front of the Class (2024) and The Game I Will Never Forget (2025), most of them with Hachette Children's Group. She was appointed MBE in 2022.