[1][2] In 2017, Dassu won the international We Need Diverse Books mentorship award.
Her bestselling[3] debut novel, was published in October 2020, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Waterstone's Children's Books Prize.
[5] In January 2021 she became one of The National Literacy Trust‘s Connecting Stories campaign's leading authors, aiming to help inspire a love of reading and writing in children and young people.
[4] She also set up a We Need Diverse Books grant for supporting an unpublished refugee or immigrant writer.
[9] In addition to her work as a writer and campaigner, Dassu is also the deputy editor of SCBWI-BI's Words & Pictures magazine and a director at Inclusive Minds[5] – a CIC that works towards greater inclusion, accessibility and more authentic representation of marginalised groups in books for young people.