SF Said

SF Said is an award-winning author. He was born in Lebanon in 1967, but has lived in London since he was 2 years old. He wrote his first novel, Varjak Paw (2003), while working as a speechwriter for the Crown Prince of Jordan, and then as an arts journalist and film programmer.

Varjak Paw won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Children's Literature, and SF Said was the first writer from an ethnic minority background to do so. It has since been adapted as a stage play and an opera, and a film version is in development. It has been translated into 14 languages. In 2021, Varjak Paw was included in BookTrust's list of the 100 Best Children's Books From The Last 100 Years.

He has described his new book Tyger (2022) as his "best book yet". It won the Foyles Children's Book Of The Year Award, and was picked as a book of the year by The Guardian, The Times and Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers.

SF Said is a Fellow of Royal Society Of Literature, and is active in the wider world of literature and the arts. He has judged major UK book awards, and is a dedicated champion of reading for pleasure, and writes passionately about children’s books and all things connected to them.