Nikita Lalwani & Vik Sharma
NIKITA
Nikita is an award-winning author, screenwriter and journalist. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages.
This is writing extensively for TV and film and is currently in the AMANDALAND writer’s room and has previously written on all series of Amazon’s Stephen Merchant show THE OUTLAWS and recently on SKY TV series UNDER SALT MARSH starring Keilly Reilly. Nikita & Vik have their original TV series DAYTIMERS in development with C4 and they have both adapted Nikita’s Booker prize and Costa First Novel Award nominated novel GIFTED as a TV series at Netflix. They are also currently writing the feature film adaptation of hit book UNRAVELLING by Preeti Nair for Roughcut.
Nikita’s second book, THE VILLAGE, was modelled on a real-life ‘prison village’ in northern India, and won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered award. Nikita has adapted THE VILLAGE as a feature film for Dev Patel and his production company Minor Realm.
Her third novel, [http://%20https/www.penguin.co.uk/authors/32482/nikita-lalwani.html]YOU PEOPLE ( Penguin UK, June 2020, McSweeneys USA , May 2021) revolves around a London restaurant and its enigmatic proprietor, a man known for offering under-the-counter loans, legal aid and safe passage to those in need. You can see her talking about YOU PEOPLE here and on Sky Arts Book Club.
She has contributed to the Guardian (UK), the New Statesman and The Observer (UK). She has also written for AIDS Sutra, an anthology exploring the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS in India. You can read her essay, ‘Mister X versus Hospital Y’ here. She has appeared on the ITV politics show The Agenda and BBC’s Hard Talk.
Lalwani has been a judge for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the RSL Encore Second Novel Prize and The Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. She lives in North London.
“Lalwani’s serious, ravishing way of writing about the secret life of Britain is just what we need.”
―Times (UK)
“Lalwani has a knack for close observation of people: their mannerisms and motivations, the way they relate to each other in different situations. This makes for potent storytelling. The prose itself floats the story into a plane of effervescence with rich imagery.” Seattle Times
VIK
Vik is a composer and script-writer based in London who previously worked in marketing and advertising. He’s been involved in projects that have won and been nominated for several awards including BAFTA, Emmys, Cannes Lions, BIMA and the D&AD Awards.
Sharma began his musical career as a member of the Asian Undergound band 'Joi' signed to Peter Gabriel's label OneWorld. After a career in advertising and digital, he pivoted into film and television composition, collaborating extensively with Stephen Merchant, writing soundtracks to his film 'Fighting with My Family' (which debuted at #1 in the UK Box Office), the Emmy nominated HBO series' Hello Ladies' and three series of the Bafta winning international hit 'An Idiot Abroad' which also featured Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington. Sharma also wrote the soundtrack to the Emmy award winning series 'Hoff the Record', a mockumentary featuring David Hasselhof and was series composer on Clarkson's Farm. His most recent work, '24 Splashes of Denial', featuring acclaimed poet Ruth Padel, is a response to the climate crisis and was released in partnership with Writers Rebel.
Sharma is a regular collaborator with writer Nikita Lalwani. They have worked together on writing the script for forthcoming feature 'Picture This' for Amazon Prime starring Bridgerton's Simone Ashley, and co-written a 60 minute pilot script adaptation of Lalwani's Booker-longlisted novel 'GIFTED' for SKY.
