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Derek Owusu is an award-winning writer and poet from North London. He discovered his passion for literature late in life while studying Exercise Science at university. Unable to afford a change of degree, he began reading voraciously and sneaking into English Literature lectures at the University of Manchester.

His latest novel, Losing the Plot, was published by Canongate in November 2022. His first novel, That Reminds Me, was the first work of fiction to be published by Stormzy’s #Merky Books imprint and won the Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction. The judges praised it as a ‘transcendent work of literature.’ In 2020, Derek was one of the founding members of the Black Writers Guild. 

Derek has written poetry and short stories for the BBC and ITV, and regularly features on literary prize judging panels.

In 2019 Derek collated, edited and contributed to SAFE: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space, an anthology exploring the experiences of Black men in Britain.

That Reminds Me

That Reminds Me is the story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. A deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.

Losing The Plot

Driven by a deep-seated desire to understand his mother’s life before he was born, Derek Owusu offers a powerful imagining of her journey. As she moves from Ghana to the UK and navigates parenthood in a strange and often lonely environment, the effects of displacement are felt across generations.