Beverley Naidoo grew up in South Africa under apartheid. She says: "As a white child I didn't question the terrible injustices until I was a student. I decided then that unless I joined the resistance, I was part of the problem." She was detained without trial and later went into exile in Britain where she has worked as a teacher, education adviser and writer. She received her doctorate from the University of Southampton for research into white teenagers' responses to literature and racism.
Her first children's book, Journey to Jo'burg, was banned in South Africa until 1991 but it was an eye-opener for thousands of readers worldwide. It celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015. She has written novels, short stories, poetry and plays and has won many awards for her writing, including the Carnegie Medal for The Other Side of Truth. A subsequent novel Burn My Heart (Children's Africana Book Award) is a story of friendship, loyalty and betrayal set in 1950s colonial Kenya. Her retellings of ancient tales include the Tiny Owl picture book Cinderella of the Nile, illustrated by Marjan Vafaeian. Her new novel Children of the Stone City is due to be published in 2022.
Non-fiction includes Death of an Idealist: In Search of Neil Aggett. It is the biography of a medical doctor and unpaid trade union organiser who was the 51st person - and first white person - to die while detained by apartheid security police. Neil Aggett, born in Kenya, was a son of the author's first cousin. A second inquest was opened in 2020/2021 to re-examine the cause of his death, the 1st having concluded with the then customary "No One to Blame".
Beverley Naidoo has received a number of Honorary Doctorates for her body of work. She has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Award and was the South African nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2008. See also www.beverleynaidoo.com
NOVELS
Children of the Stone City (HarperCollins, due 2022)
Burn My Heart (Puffin/ Longman Literature)
Web of Lies (Puffin)
The Other Side of Truth (A Puffin Book)
No Turning Back (Penguin The Originals)
Chain of Fire (Puffin e-book/ HarperCollins USA p/b)
Journey to Jo'burg (New Longman Literature/Collins Modern Classics )
SHORT STORIES
Who is King? Ten Magical Stories from Africa (Frances Lincoln)
Aesop's African Fables (Frances Lincoln)
Call of the Deep (Barrington Stoke)
Out of Bounds: Stories of Conflict and Hope, with Foreword by Archbishop Tutu (Puffin)
The Great Tug of War & other stories with ill. Piet Grobler (Frances Lincoln)
EDITED ANTHOLOGIES
Global Tales: Stories from Many Cultures co-eds C Donovan & A Hicks (Longman)
PICTURE BOOKS
Cinderella of the Nile illustrated by Marjan Vafaeian (Tiny Owl, 2018)
S is for South Africa with Prodeepta Das (Frances Lincoln)
Baba's Gift with Maya Naidoo, illustrated by Karin Littlewood (Puffin)
Where is Zami?, ill. by Petra Rohr-Rouendaal (Macmillan Education)
Letang's new friend , illustrated by Petra Rohr-Rouendaal (Longman)
Trouble for Letang and Julie, ill. by Petra Rohr-Rouendaal (Longman)
Letang and Julie save the day ill by Petra Rohr-Rouendaal (Longman)
PLAYS
"The Playground" in New South African Plays, ed Charles Fourie (Aurora Metro Press)
NON-FICTION
Death of an Idealist: In Search of Neil Aggett (Jonathan Ball)
Through Whose Eyes? Exploring racism: reader, text and context (Trentham Books)
Contributions to anthologies include:
Lebanon, Lebanon (Saqi Books)
Freedom Spring: Ten Years On (Waverley Books for Glasgow City Council)
Making It Home: real-life stories from children forced to flee (Puffin)
Eating Words for Breakfast (BookAid International/Puffin)
Lines in the Sand. eds Mary Hoffman, Rhiannon Lassiter (Frances Lincoln)
Kids Night In (War Child/Collins)
Dare to be Different (Amnesty International/ Bloomsbury)
See website for further details www.beverleynaidoo.com