Maya Jaggi is a British writer, literary critic, editor and cultural journalist.Maya Jaggi profile, The Guardian. In the words of the Open University, from which Jaggi received an honorary doctorate in 2012, she "has had a transformative influence in the last 25 years in extending the map of international writing today"."Cultural journalist Maya Jaggi receives OU Honorary Doctorate", The Open University, 3 April 2012. In 2023, Jaggi was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.Maya Jaggi, Fellows, Royal Society of Literature.
Jaggi has been a contributor to a wide range of publications including The Guardian, Financial Times, The Independent, The Literary Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Statesman, Wasafiri, Index on Censorship, and Newsweek, and is particularly known for her profiles of writers, artists, film-makers, musicians and others. She is also a broadcaster and presenter on radio and television. Jaggi is the niece of actor and food writer Madhur Jaffrey."Memories-on-sea: Lake District – Maya Jaggi", The Guardian, 18 August 2008."Madhur", Mygola.
Life and career Born in London, UK,"About the Author", Anthills of the Savannah (Penguin Modern Classics), Amazon. where her parents settled in 1960 after migrating from India, Maya Jaggi was educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics.Biographical notes, Newsweek magazine, 2 January 2012.
Her first job, in the 1980s, was as Literary Editor of the journal Third World Quarterly,Advisory board , Wasafiri. where she "created a literature section that embraced Latin America as part of the global South", commissioning and publishing work by and about major writers."Maya Jaggi. A Cultural Journalist on World Literature via Spain", New Spanish Books. In the late 1990s, she joined the staff of The Guardian, working on the foreign news desk while also writing for the paper's cultural pages.
Since 2000, Jaggi has built a freelance career reporting on arts and culture from five continents and has earned acclaim for her long-form arts profiles, written particularly for the Guardian Review up until 2015."Contributor: Maya Jaggi", Words Without Borders. In addition, she has contributed articles and reviews to a wide range of publications, among them The Financial Times, The Independent, The Economist, The Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, The Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, Index on Censorship, the Literary Review, the Evening Standard, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books, New Statesman, Bookforum, Wasafiri magazine and Words Without Borders.
In September 2004, she was one of 50 Black and Asian writers celebrated for their contribution to the canon of contemporary British literature in a photograph at the British Library entitled "A Great Day"."A Great Day" , Renaissance One.Andrea Levy, "Made in Britain", The Guardian, 18 September 2004.Kevin Le Gendre, "Books: A great day for a family get together; Who are the movers and shakers in black British writing? And can they all fit on one staircase?", The Independent on Sunday, 17 October 2004.
She has received various awards over the years and in 2012 her work was recognised with an honorary doctorate from the Open University,"Honorary graduate cumulative list" , Open University, 2017. the citation noting that Jaggi "occupies a unique place in British journalism, and has had a transformative influence in the last 25 years in extending the map of international writing today."
In 2014, she was a DAAD Arts and Media fellow in Berlin."Maya Jaggi", International Publishers Congress London 2016 . She has also been an EU Senior Expert in Cultural Journalism in post-Soviet Europe."Get Up, Stand Up Now In Conversation & Readings: Linton Kwesi Johnson & Caryl Phillips | Hosted by Maya Jaggi", Somerset House, 7 September 2019."Mohammad Omar Khalil in conversation with Maya Jaggi", The Mosaic Rooms, 23 January 2020.
In 2022, Jaggi was Writer in Residence at the Writer's House of Georgia in Tbilisi, and in 2023 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Literary profiles She has interviewed a dozen Nobel Prize-winners for literature, including Gunter Grass, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jose Saramago, Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, V. S. Naipaul, Kenzaburō Ōe, and Orhan Pamuk (before he won the prize), as well as other celebrated authors and scholars including Chinua Achebe, Umberto Eco, Tom Stoppard, W. G. Sebald, James Kelman, Alice Walker, Nuruddin Farah, Mahmoud Darwish, Hanan al-Shaykh, Elias Khoury, Alaa al-Aswany, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Amin Maalouf, Isabel Allende, Henry Louis Gates Jr, Eric Hobsbawm, George Steiner, Jeanette Winterson, Caryl Phillips, Kazuo Ishiguro, Arundhati Roy, Walter Mosley, Terry McMillan, Amy Tan, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Aminatta Forna, Nadeem Aslam, Romesh Gunesekera, Junot Díaz and Edward Said (the latter praising her profile of him as "in a class of its own"),Judges, The Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize: Arabic to English, 6 June 2011. and practitioners of diverse art forms, such as filmmaker Costa Gavras, musician Abdullah Ibrahim, painter Frank Bowling, dancer Carlos Acosta, and Oprah Winfrey.
Several of Jaggi's literary profiles have appeared in such collections as Lives and Works (2002), Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk (ed. Susheila Nasta, 2004) and Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism (ed. Kira Cochrane, 2010). The 2001 Penguin Modern Classics edition of Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah has an introduction by Jaggi.Maya Jaggi, "Emerging Voices: Literature has liberated Africa’s authors", The Financial Times, 30 January 2015.
Broadcasting Her work as a broadcaster encompasses contributions to such BBC radio programmes as The Strand,"The Strand Archive" (podcast), BBC World Service, 26 April 2011. Front Row, Night Waves, Off the Page, Any Questions? and The World Tonight, and she was writer-presenter of the television documentary Isabel Allende: The Art of Reinvention (BBC Four, 2003).Contributor biographies, Brick 76. . In 2009, Jaggi's interview with cultural theorist Stuart Hall was the subject of a 258-minute film by Mike Dibb entitled Personally Speaking: A Long Conversation with Stuart Hall."Personally Speaking: A Long Conversation with Stuart Hall (2009)", IMDb."Personally Speaking – Clip – Stuart Hall on the Obama Phenomenon", YouTube.
Other cultural activity Jaggi has served as an adviser to the London Arts Board and the British Council, an executive member of English PENMaya Jaggi biography at Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. The Banipal Trust for Arab Literature. and as a judge for numerous literary awards: the Orange Prize, the David Cohen Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, the Amnesty International UK Media Awards,"Media Awards Shortlist Announced", Amnesty International UK, 16 May 2001. the Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize,Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize 2011, Vintage. the Warwick Prize for Writing,"Blogger & Maths Prof Join Weird Fiction Writer as Judges of Warwick's £50,000 Writing Prize", News & Events, Warwick. the Wasafiri New Writing Prize,"New Writing Prize 2012", Wasafiri. the Man Asian Literary Prize,, The Man Asian Literary Prize, 14 May 2012."2012 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist Announcement. Dr. Maya Jaggi, Chair Judge of the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize, announces the shortlist via video conference from Man Group offices in London and Hong Kong." the Caine Prize for African Writing,"Maya Jaggi, Judge 2012, Cultural journalist and critic", The Caine Prize, 25 June 2012. the International Dublin Literary Award,"Impac prize judge Maya Jaggi: how we chose this year's winner", Books blog, The Guardian, 12 June 2014. the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and others."2014 Judging Panel" , International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
She participates regularly in literary festivals, presents seminars and live events,"Watch: Hwang Sun-mi with Maya Jaggi at LBF 2014", English PEN, 30 May 2014."Highlights: Edinburgh Taster: Elias Khoury and Bahaa Taher", YouTube. Maya Jaggi moderating discussion at the Frontline Club, 27 October 2009."Meera Syal In conversation with Maya Jaggi", Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, 20 May 2015. and is a board member of Wasafiri magazine and a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize."Maya Jaggi", SI Leeds Literary Prize. . She is also a member of the Folio Prize Academy.
In April 2016, she was Artistic Director of the project "Where Europe Meets Asia: Georgia 25", a cultural week marking the 25 years since Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union."Cultural week dedicated to 25 years of independence of Georgia", Embassy of Georgia to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, April 2016. Talks, films and other events took place in London at Asia HouseJemimah Steinfeld (8 April 2016), "Insights into Georgia ahead of a series of talks at Asia House", Asia House. . and elsewhere, with participants including Boris Akunin, Boyd Tonkin, Donald Rayfield, Aka Morchiladze, Dato Turashvili, Zurab Karumidze, Claire Armitstead, Maureen Freely, and others."Where Europe Meets Asia: GEORGIA25, 11-17 April 2016", Georgian National Book Center."Where Europe meets Asia: Georgia25", The European Literature Network.
Jaggi has chaired the judging panel of the EBRD Literature Prize (2024 and 2025), and she serves as critic-at-large for Words Without Borders.
Awards and recognition 1996: National Newspaper Writer of the Year, Race in the Media Awards (RIMA). 1998: National Newspaper Writer of the Year, Race in the Media Awards. 1998: Feature writer of the year, EMMA awards, Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy. 1999: Feature writer of the year, EMMA awards, Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy."Maya Jaggi | EMMA Awards" (1999), YouTube. 2001: National News – body of work, RIMA, shortlisted"Race in the Media – The 2001 awards", The Guardian. 2003: Orwell Prize shortlist 2012: Honorary degree of Doctor of the University, Open University, for her "outstanding contribution to education and culture". 2023: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
References
External links Maya Jaggi profile, The Guardian. "Stories by Maya Jaggi", Newsweek.
Maya Jaggi, "Colour bind", The Guardian, 7 February 2003. Maya Jaggi page, The Daily Beast. "Book Reviews by Maya Jaggi", The Literary Review. Maya Jaggi at The Financial Times. "Maya Jaggi: «Art is an important way of seeing yourself in someone else’s shoes»", Creative Economy, culturepartnership.eu.