Iqbal Hussain

Iqbal’s first children’s book, The Night I Borrowed Time, is published by Puffin in 2026. Though today he lives happily in London with his partner and dog, When the Streets Fell Silent – the winning story for The World of Interiors writing prize – details his traumatic departure from Blackburn. Evoking a community eroded as feet wear away cobblestone, the piece impressed the judges with its sense of time passing: ‘a year in the life of waiting for the bulldozers’, as Indira Varma puts it. ‘It’s so moving: you really feel the people disappearing.’ Hamish Bowles agrees: ‘These little houses were doomed, but each held this incredible story.’