DBF 2026: New Northern Voices: Sufiyaan Salam, Louise Powell and Shaun Wilson

Three exciting new authors introduce their powerful debut novels.

Northern communities are vividly brought to life through the young son of an ex-miner in 90s County Durham in Underdogs, three brown boys on Manchester’s Curry Mile in Wimmy Road Boyz and a Cumbrian teenager rebelling against his fearsome publican father in Malc’s Boy.Louise Powell is a working-class writer from Middlesbrough.

Louise was published in the Common People anthology.

She won the Sid Chaplin Award at the Northern Writers’ Awards in 2023 for Underdogs.Blackburn-born Sufiyaan Salam was named as one of The Observer’s best debut novelists of 2026 for his #Merky Books New Writers Prize-winning debut, Wimmy Road Boyz.

He is a novelist, former animator, and an award-winning screenwriter.Shaun Wilson is author of the novel Malc’s Boy, which won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2021.

He lives in Cumbria.