Kevin Jared Hosein

Kevin Jared Hosein (born 1986) is a Caribbean writer from Trinidad and Tobago. He writes novels, books for children and young adults, and short stories. His writing has appeared in Granta, Lightspeed magazine, Wasafiri, and on BBC Radio 4. He has twice been longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. He has been the runner up for the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature for young adults and has won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Early life and education Kevin Jared Hosein was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1986 in an Indo-Trinidadian family. Later on in his childhood, Hosein became deeply interested in books and writing, particularly authors such as Stephen King and Cormac McMarthy. In 2015, he won the Caribbean regional category of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story "The King of Settlement 4". Reviewing it for The Times, Claire Allfree called Hungry Ghosts a "sumptuous, brilliantly written novel". The title refers to pretas, an ancient Hindu tradition that people who commit certain sins transform after death into beings with very small mouths and very large appetites. It is set in rural Trinidad in the 1940s, and features the impoverished Saroops and the wealthy farm-owning Changoors. Their lives become intertwined when Dalton Changoor disappears. In 2024, the novel was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, for writers under the age of forty, and won the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Books for children and young adults Hosein has published three works of fiction for children and young adults: Littletown Secrets, The Beast of Kukuyo and The Repenters.

Littletown Secrets (2013) was his first published book. He both wrote and illustrated the book, which tells of a young boy who charges to keep other children's secrets. It was named Best Children's Book of 2013 by the Trinidad Guardian. and the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction.

His 2018 book, The Beast of Kukuyo, in which a 15-year-old girl investigates the disappearance of her classmate in a quiet rural village in Trinidad, won second place in the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature for young adults. It was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.

Other work Hosein's poem "The Wait is So, So Long" was turned into a short film that received a Gold Key at the New York-based Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Works Novels Hungry Ghosts, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.

For children/young adults Littletown Secrets, 2013. The Repenters, Peepal Tree Press, 2016. The Beast of Kukuyo, Blouse & Skirt Books, 2018 .