Stormzy’s publishing imprint #Merky Books has acquired the autobiography of Malorie Blackman, the novelist and former children’s laureate who the rapper has called a formative inspiration.
The memoir, to be published in 2022, will begin with Blackman’s childhood in south London, the daughter of parents who arrived from Barbados as part of the Windrush generation. It will also chart her writing career, from the 83 rejection letters she received when she sent out her first book to her gaining the laureateship in 2013. #Merky Books said the autobiography would be “empowering and inspiring”. It described Blackman’s series Noughts and Crosses, which is set in a world where the dominant population is black, as one that “sparked a new and necessary conversation about race and identity in the UK” when it was published in 2000.
Blackman will describe how “everyday racism and bigotry” marred her childhood, and how she was told she could not apply to study literature at university. “It explores the books [that] have made her who she is, and the background to some the most beloved and powerful children’s stories of today,” said #Merky Books.
The children’s author said she “couldn’t be more excited and delighted” with her new publisher. “Not only will my autobiography be a full and frank account of my life journey as an author,” she said, “it will also contain all the writer’s tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years.”
Stormzy has called the Noughts and Crosses series his “favourite books of all time”, which “showed me just how amazing storytelling could be”.
The grime star’s #Merky imprint is part of Penguin Random House. It publishes two or three books a year and is intended to be “a home for a new generation of voices”. Titles to date include Stormzy’s Rise Up, Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi’s Taking Up Space, and the forthcoming verse novel by Derek Owusu, That Reminds Me.
