THE MAGIC OF MALORIE Author Malorie Blackman on rejection, racism and her musical connections

As the TV adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses arrives on BBC One, Anna Bonet talks to the phenomenally successful author about rejection, racism and writing the truth

An author of children’s and young adult fiction might be an unlikely name to hear in the lyrics of grime and hip hop, but Malorie Blackman’s words have been so important to an entire generation that she’s been namechecked in more than one song. From Tinie Tempah’s Written In The Stars in 2010 to Stormzy’s 2019 track Superheroes, Blackman’s name has been appearing in popular culture for the last decade.

‘That’s right, I’m collecting rappers!’ Blackman exclaims over the phone from her home in Kent when I bring this up. ‘It’s so flattering. I’m just really grateful because I’m up in my attic writing away most of the time, and you don’t know how books are going to be received. They might just disappear.’

Disappear they certainly did not. Blackman’s work has been so successful that she has sold more than 1.7m copies of the books in her Noughts & Crosses series. She was awarded an OBE in 2008 and was children’s laureate between 2013 and 2015. A line from Noughts & Crosses was even read out in a voice-over at Stormzy’s historic Glastonbury set: ‘I hadn’t fully realised just how powerful words could be before this. Whoever came up with the saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” was talking out of his or her armpit.’

Stormzy has often said he’s been a lifelong fan of Blackman – much to the confusion of her daughter, Elizabeth. ‘Does he have any idea how uncool you are?’ Blackman once quoted her as saying in a tweet. When

I remind her of this, she laughs warmly. ‘And she’s not lying, I am totally uncool. I have come to terms with that.’

But it’s not just rap artists that Blackman counts among her fans. Rather an entire generation of readers who grew up on a diet of her novels. After a decade of successfully writing children’s books, Blackman published the first in the Noughts & Crosses series in 2001. Set in a world where white people (‘noughts’) are the minority and face discrimination from black people (‘crosses’), the books sit in the dystopian fiction genre, but a lot of the plot was taken from experience – just the other way around. They may be written for a YA audience, but tackle everything from racism to terrorism and addiction. Does she make a conscious effort not to sugar-coat things for young people? ‘I maintain that if a teen can go through it, then it’s a legitimate subject to write about,’ Blackman says. ‘With a young adult audience, you have to be truthful.’

Growing up, racial abuse – including being called derogatory names and told to ‘go back where she came from’ – was commonplace for Blackman. ‘When I sat down to write Noughts & Crosses, I wanted to address that,’ she explains, ‘but not in the way people expected.’

‘Some of the things Callum [the nought protagonist] goes through, especially at school, are based on true experiences,’ Blackman continues. ‘Things like me saying to my history teacher, “Why don’t you ever talk about black scientists?” and she said, “Because there aren’t any.” That went in the book. And the first time I travelled first class on a train and the ticket inspector accused me of stealing the ticket also went in the book.’

She was also told by her careers adviser in school that black people didn’t go to university. ‘She refused to give

me a reference to go to Goldsmiths to do the English and drama degree I wanted to do,’ she says. Blackman ended up working in computing for nine years instead, a job she took in order to fund her studies but ended up staying in because she enjoyed the work. ‘She taught me a lesson, because if someone’s in your face telling you that you can’t do [something], you have to find your way around them.’

This life lesson stood her in good stead when she decided she wanted to be an author. Blackman enrolled on a writing course at City Lit in London, where she met the late author Andrea Levy, but wrote nine books and received 82 rejection letters before she had anything published.

‘It took a while and a number of books,’ she says. ‘But that said, I look back on it now and think those two or three years were my apprenticeship.’ How did she keep going? ‘I was so desperate to be an author. I wanted to be an author more than anything else. So how could I give up?’

Now, Blackman has been writing for 30 years and has published more than 70 books. Noughts & Crosses has been going for so long that Blackman tells me she gets letters that say, ‘I read this as a teen, so couldn’t wait to give it to my own teen.’

Her books have inevitably ended up in the hands of her daughter, Elizabeth, too. ‘She gives me her honest opinion,’ Blackman says. ‘She’s also been really good for telling me when I’ve used a phrase that I think young people use [but they don’t]. She just shakes her head and says, “No, Mum, no. They might have used that 15 years ago…” She keeps me on my toes.’

What was Blackman like as a teen herself? ‘Always getting told off for daydreaming,’ she chuckles. ‘I felt like a bit of a misfit as well. I was into things other people weren’t. I was into sci-fi, graphic novels and comics.’

Books by and about people of colour haven’t had their fair share of the limelight, and Blackman wishes there had been more to read when she was growing up.

‘I feel like I had a second education after I left school and discovered a black bookshop in Islington,’ she says. ‘After rent and food, it got all of my money. I devoured all the books I felt I’d missed as a child.’

However, Blackman does feel the publishing industry is changing, and there are a number of young writers she’s excited about, including Nadine Wild-palmer and Alexandra Sheppard. ‘I was here when publishers were first talking about how we must be more inclusive, then it all seemed to fizzle out,’ she says. But now she’s being sent more and more books by black British authors, so feels optimistic. ‘This feels different to me. It feels like there’s a real will and desire to make sure the momentum on this doesn’t just stop. I so hope that is the case.’

Married to her husband, Neil, since the 1990s, Blackman thinks the secret to sustaining long-term love is ‘communication more than anything else.

Talking about the things that give you joy, and the things that irritate you.’

I find it hard to imagine anything irritating the author – she has such a positive energy, seemingly without a bad word to say about anything – but I want to find out what brings her joy. ‘I try to learn a new thing each year,’ she tells me. It transpires Blackman is a serial enroller, and counts a term of Chinese, a forensic science course and saxophone, piano and drum lessons as just some of the many things she’s tried her hand at in adult life.

What’s next on her list? ‘Either clarinet, or I might do an Adobe Animate or Photoshop course. I like doing something outside of writing, but you know what, it all feeds in,’ she explains. ‘It’s all grist to the mill.’

Still, how Blackman fits in these lessons alongside such a successful career is a mystery. Not only has she been writing both an autobiography and the final book in the Noughts & Crosses series, Endgame, she’s also been involved with the BBC adaptation of her book.

The series stars Peaky Blinders’ Jack Rowan and newcomer Masali Baduza as Callum and Sephy, the star-crossed pair from book one. It also features a cameo role from – you guessed it – Stormzy (who Blackman has met and says is a ‘lovely guy’).

The author has been involved throughout, giving comments on the script and rough cuts. She has writer friends who have been ushered out the door after selling the rights to their books, so tells me she feels ‘incredibly lucky to have been kept in the loop’. Although, I later think, how could you not keep the writing powerhouse that is Malorie Blackman in the loop?

If you were to look for a lesson in Blackman’s books, it would be about tolerance and kindness.

‘I would hope that if my daughter says I’ve done anything, it’s been about teaching her to live and let live,’ she says.

Now, though, it’s almost time for her to leave Noughts & Crosses behind, with the last book being published next year. That must feel strange, I say. ‘Well, it’s been 20 years of my life, and I love that world,’ Blackman reflects. ‘It’s been good to me – but I have so many other stories that I want to tell.’

Fortunately, Malorie Blackman’s books will no doubt continue to be interwoven into the fabric of our society and culture – popping up on GCSE curriculums, festival sets and albums for many years to come. Lucky us.

‘I HAVE SO MANY OTHER STORIES I WANT TO TELL’

Noughts + Crosses airs on BBC One in March