“When I published my first book, I realised that it was imperative for me to offer the same guidance that I had been lucky enough to find. I immediately volunteered to be a mentor and started teaching and workshopping where I could.”
Writer of novels, short stories, poems and plays
Irfan Master in conversation with Roopa Farooki
Writing on graph paper and the value of mentorship
Biography
Irfan Master is an author of novels, shorts stories, poetry and plays. His debut novel, A Beautiful Lie, (Bloomsbury, 2011) was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book prize and the Branford Boase award for debut authors and translated into ten languages. His second novel for young adults, Out of Heart (Hot Key, 2017), was long listed for the Carnegie Medal. Irfan’s short fiction has also been published in numerous anthologies, most recently, Resist (Comma press, 2019), The Good Journal (2019) and the award-winning A Change is Gonna Come (Stripes, 2017). In 2019 he contributed an article highlighting the importance of greater representation in literature for young people that featured in Breaking New Ground, a round-up of British writers of colour produced by BookTrust and Speaking Volumes.
Irfan is a passionate advocate for creative projects in the community and has developed programmes and mentored young people in how to gain access to the creative arts. He has worked with English PEN, the British Council and the Arvon Foundation to deliver writing workshops and has worked as writer-in-residence for the writing charity First Story since 2011. Irfan is currently an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature at London Metropolitan University.
Before embarking on a writing career, Irfan gained his MA in Library & Information Science from Loughborough University, working initially as a public and school librarian and then as an advocate for libraries and reading as Project Manager at the National Literacy Trust. Irfan lives with his wife and son in London.
