Caleb Femi is a prize-winning poet, director and photographer

Caleb Femi is a writer, director and photographer, and was featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. Femi’s award-winning debut poetry collection, Poor, was published in 2020 by Penguin Press, and won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2021. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, longlisted for the Jhalak Prize, was selected as a Book of the Year by the New Statesman, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer and BBC, and was added to AQA’s English Literature GCSE syllabus in the UK in 2022.

He has directed TV episodes for HBO, the BBC and Netflix, as well as commercials, high-fashion films and runway shows for brands such as Louis Vuitton, TikTok, Bottega Veneta, Dior, Mulberry and NCS. From 2016 to 2018 he was the Young People’s Laureate for London, working with young people on a city, national and global level. His next work, The Wickedest, will be published by Fourth Estate in September 2024.

Femi is a judge for the International Booker Prize 2025.