Yaba Badoe

Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker, journalist and fiction author. As a writer, she is most famous for her young adult novel A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, which blends myths and haunting realities to address Europe's migration crisis.

Yaba Badoe was born in Tamale, northern Ghana. She left for Britain at a young age. A King's College, Cambridge graduate, she worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana before beginning her career in journalism as a trainee at the BBC.

Her notable works include Black and White(1987), an investigation into race and racism in Bristol, and I Want Your Sex (1991), an art documentary exploring Western images and myths surrounding black sexuality.

Badoe also has taught in Spain and Jamaica and worked at the University of Ghana.

In 2009, she published short stories in Critical Quarterly, African Love Stories: an anthology, and New Daughters of Africa. Jonathan Cape published her first adult novel, True Murder.

In 2017, Cassava Republic published The Secret of the Purple Lake, a collection of interconnected fairy stories for children aged 9 to 12.

Her first YA novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award in 2018 and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Award in 2018.

A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars follows Sante, a young girl navigating the challenges of Europe's migration crisis after her parents' tragic death. Set in Cadiz, a beautiful city in southern Spain, this story combines magic and reality to explore themes of identity and justice.

Yaba Badoe lives in London.

Photo credit: www.yababadoe.com