Hanna Alkaf

Hanna Alkaf is a Malaysian author. Her books include The Weight of Our Sky, The Girl and the Ghost, and Queen of the Tiles.

Career

Hanna was formerly a journalist.^[1] Her first published book, GILA: A Journey Through Moods & Madness, is a non-fiction work about mental health and illness in Malaysia inspired by a story about postpartum depression she covered during her journalism career.^[1][2]

Hanna's debut young adult novel, The Weight of Our Sky, was released in 2019 by Salaam Reads. Set in 1960s Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during the 13 May riots, it follows Melati, a Malay teenager with obsessive-compulsive disorder who searches for her missing mother when the riots separate them alongside Vincent, a Chinese-Malaysian boy.^[3][4] The book won a 2019 Freeman Award,^[5] and was adapted into a webcomic that released on Webtoon.^[6][7]

In 2020, Hanna published The Girl and the Ghost, about a young girl named Suraya who befriends a pelesit that once belonged to her grandmother. She dubs him Pink and they grow close, only for their relationship to sour when Pink becomes violent towards those who he believes have wronged Suraya as well as Suraya's new friend Jing Wei.^[8] The Girl and the Ghost was a finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers.^[9]

Hanna's other books include Queen of the Tiles, about a competitive Scrabble player who discovers a conspiracy behind her friend's death at a tournament the previous year,^{[10][11][12][13]} Hamra and the Jungle of Memories, a Little Red Riding Hood-inspired novel about a girl and a weretiger,^[14][15] and The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's, where the students of an all-female academy experience a phenomenon where girls start randomly screaming then vanishing.^[16][17] In 2026, she released the novella The Warung Between Worlds with the Malaysian publishing house Bookiut.^[18][19][20]

She is also editor of the anthology The Beasts Beneath The Winds: Tales Of Southeast Asia’s Mythical Creatures,^[21][22] and the co-editor of The Grimoire of Grave Fates alongside Margaret Owen.^[23][24]

Publications

Awards and honours

References