Malorie Blackman, author of the Noughts & Crosses series, and Julia Donaldson, creator of The Gruffalo, have been recognised as dames in the latest honours list. A rugby league star also received a knighthood in the same announcement.
Blackman's Noughts & Crosses series stands as a landmark work in young adult fiction. The novels are set in an alternate Britain called Albion, colonised centuries earlier by Africa. In this inverted world, Black citizens hold political and economic power while white citizens form the underclass, facing segregation and structural disadvantage. The series explores themes of racism and social division through this alternative history framework.
The first book in the series was Blackman's 50th publication. It arrived at a significant cultural moment. "I sat down at my computer really angry," Blackman explained in an interview about the work's origins. The 1990s saw the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report's findings on institutional racism within the Metropolitan Police. "It was my way of channelling that anger," she said.
Before publication, Blackman encountered resistance to the project. "People were telling me, 'Oh, no one wants to read about racism.' And I thought – that's interesting. You haven't read it. You don't know what it is. You're already making assumptions," she recalled.
The series eventually expanded far beyond its original trilogy, incorporating books including Knife Edge, Checkmate, Crossfire and Endgame. As global events unfolded, including Brexit, Donald Trump's election and a worldwide pandemic, the fictional world of Albion reflected contemporary reality back to readers. "The world just kept giving me material," Blackman noted.
On publication, Noughts & Crosses proved radical for British young adult literature. Few novels had tackled racism with such force while trusting young readers with moral complexity. The work subsequently appeared in the BBC's Big Read poll of the nation's favourite novels, was adapted for stage and television by the BBC, and became a staple of school curricula across the UK.
When asked if she had predicted the book's success, Blackman was modest about the outcome. "When you sit down to write, you don't know if it's going to sink or swim," she said. "You don't know even if anyone's going to read it. And the fact that so many people have, and have come up to me and said what it meant to them, I feel very, very lucky."
Julia Donaldson's picture books, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, have sold millions of copies worldwide and become foundational texts for early childhood reading. Both authors' recognition in the honours list acknowledges their profound influence on British literature and reading culture across generations.