Malorie Blackman OBE is a British author, short-story writer, playwright, and screenwriter. She writes primarily for children and young adults, using fiction to explore social and ethical issues in an accessible way, and was the Children’s Laureate from 2013 to 2015.
Born in London in 1962, Blackman studied to be a systems programmer at Thames Polytechnic and is a graduate of the National Film and Television School. Seeing the dearth of black voices in literature, Blackman decided to start writing in the 1980s, and since 1990 has published over 70 books. Her works are highly awarded, and she has received a BAFTA, a Hugo nomination, a Carnegie Medal shortlist, and multiple regional and international children’s book awards. In 2018, she was the first person of color to write for the television program Doctor Who. She is a proponent of diversity in literature and entertainment, as well as treating children and young adults as capable of understanding and critiquing social issues.
Blackman’s parents are both from Barbados, and some elements of her experience growing up black in England are an influence in Noughts & Crosses (2001), her 50th book. Blackman lives with her husband and daughter in Kent, where she plays piano, writes poetry, and plays videogames such as World of Warcraft. The final installment in the Noughts and Crosses series, Endgame, was published in the U.K. in September 2021.
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses is a young-adult novel set in a parallel world in which the native people of Africa (Cafrique in the novel) colonized the rest of the world. Crosses (dark-skinned descendants of people from Cafrique) are...
