Malorie Blackman: ‘I didn’t read a book that featured a black protagonist until I was 21’ | The Independent

The first novel of Blackman's acclaimed series, of which there are now six, was written nearly two decades ago. Its story of star-crossed lovers though - a Romeo and Juliet-type story set in an alternative contemporary world in which Black people had been the colonisers and were now the ruling class dominant over white people - hasn't aged. The book challenged perceptions of race in a way that hadn't been done for a YA audience before.

"When I came to Noughts and Crosses," says Blackman, "what I found really interesting was some of the assumptions that my white friends had about black people etcetera," says Blackman. And so, she thought: "Now how do I turn it on its head?"