Yaba Badoe
Yaba Badoe is an award-winning Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she has taught in Spain, Jamaica and Ghana. Her short stories for adults have been published in Critical Quarterly and in African Love Stories: An Anthology, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo. In 2014 Yaba was nominated for the Distinguished Woman of African Cinema award.
Her debut novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, published by Zephyr, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2018 and has been nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal. Yaba is based in London.
Books
A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars
Author: Yaba Badoe
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Interest age: 12-14
Reading age: 12+
Real and supernatural threats mingle as a girl saved from a shipwreck tries to find justice for her dead parents. Romance and magic combine with a powerful setting and subject to make a unique, enjoyable read for teens.
The Secret of the Purple Lake
Author: Yaba Badoe Illustrator: Gbolahan Adams
Publisher: Cassava Republic
Interest age: 7-11
Reading age: 8+
This collection of interlinked folk tales has a truly global feel, with stories reaching from Africa to the Orkney Islands, by way of Spain and Norway.
Wolf Light
Author: Yaba Badoe
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Interest age: 12-18
Reading age: 11+
Three girls, far apart in the world, are born with magical powers into a sisterhood. Together, they must defend the planet they share. Written in a magical realist style, Wolf Light is a challenging, unconventional literary fantasy that disrupts expectations.