Of Ghanaian heritage, Derek is an award-winning British writer and podcaster who was named in literary magazine Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2023” list, which is compiled once every ten years and identifies the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40.
In 2020, Derek won the Desmond Elliott Prize for his debut novel That Reminds Me, which was named the best debut novel written in English and published in the UK.
Inspired by his mother’s journey from Ghana to Britain in the 1980s, Derek’s second novel, Losing the Plot, was published in 2022 and has received excellent reviews. The reviewer for the Irish Times wrote: “The narrative structure is elastic and malleable in Owusu’s skilled hands as he navigates and positions himself quite literally on the margins, while giving centre stage to his mother’s story….Losing the Plot is a masterclass in distilled writing and a stirring ode to motherhood.” According to Michael Donker, writing for inews.co.uk: ” The empathy with which Owusu writes of the mother’s battles and battle weariness is remarkably perceptive; he observes and captures her fragility with apposite delicateness, never with grandiosity.”