Blackman, Malorie OBE

Malorie Blackman was born in London in 1962. Her parents are both from Barbados. Her father was a bus driver and her mother worked in a factory. They instilled the importance of education into their five children. Blackman says, ‘It was the key to open any door. And I still believe that’. At school, Blackman told her career advisor she was interested in becoming an English teacher but was told, ‘Black people don’t become teachers’. This is just one example of the racist attitudes Blackman has experienced. After becoming an author, when she found her books labelled as ‘multicultural’ in bookshops, she moved them to the ‘B’ section of fiction instead. She has used her success as a writer to address the lack of diversity in children’s books, both in her own writing and through her position of Children’s Laureate (2013–2015), and says, ‘There was such a dearth of books that featured black characters – I could either whinge about it or do something about it’. She quotes the writer Toni Morrison, who says, ‘If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it’.

After school, Blackman went on to study Computer Science; however, she returned to her love of literature and her first book was published in 1990, when she was 28. Becoming an author was not without its challenges though. Blackman received 82 rejections for Not So Stupid, her book of science fiction and horror short stories, before finally getting the ‘Yes’ that was the beginning of her writing career. That’s not to say that it was easy. She’s had some ‘Nos’ since then, but now has written more than 60 books, with notable TV and stage adaptations, including the popular BBC series Noughts and Crosses.

Although diversity in literature is something that is clearly important to Blackman, until Noughts and Crosses was published in 2001 she hadn’t addressed racism directly in her writing. She says, ‘I was being criticised from my very first book for not writing about racism. But as far as I was concerned, my characters were black, I had black children on the covers – I was writing about racism’. The themes Blackman covers in her writing are many, from science fiction and horror, to ethical dilemmas such as using genetically modified animal organs for human transplants in Pig Heart Boy (1997). Blackman says, ‘I think every book I’ve written has been kind of an appraisal of myself… I think they reveal a lot about where my head is or where my heart is’.

It wasn’t until Blackman was an A Level student studying Othello that she read a text with a black character in it. Blackman was 21 when she read Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), the first book she read that had been written by a black author. Her own novel Noughts and Crosses is the only book by a black writer on the publicly voted for BBC’s The Big Read, the 100 favourite books of all time. She was the first person of colour to write for Doctor Who, co-writing the episode where the Doctor meets Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist. Find out more about Rosa Parks here.

Blackman is the recipient of many awards, including a BAFTA for the TV adaptation of Pig Heart Boy and she received an OBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to children’s literature. She writes for children of all ages, from picture books to young adults, and has written for the TV series Byker Grove as well as the film adaptation of her own book Operation Gadgetman (written in 1995; the film was released in 1996). She has even inspired rappers Stormzy and Tinie Tempah, who both mention her in their lyrics – Stormzy even had a cameo part in the BBC adaptation of Noughts and Crosses! See what some of the people who worked on the show have to say about the world of Noughts and Crosses here.

Blackman believes that all children should have access to books and would like to see every child given a library card. She had read all of the children’s books in the library where she grew up by the time she was 11! She also loves to play the piano, go to the cinema, and play computer games.

Photo credit: Taraforfun – Malorie Blackman