Beverley
Naidoo is a South African children's author who has written a number of
award-winning novels. Her involvement with the anti-apartheid movement in South
Africa led to her being imprisoned in solitary confinement for eight weeks at
the age of 21. She left for England in 1965 and worked as adviser for cultural
diversity and English in Dorset. She has tutored Creative Writing at Goldsmiths
College, University of London, and run workshops for young people and adults in
Britain and abroad. Naidoo won the Josette Frank Award twice – in 1986 for Journey
to Jo'burg
and in 1997 for No Turning Back: A Novel of South Africa. She was awarded the Carnegie
Medal in 2000 for The Other Side of Truth.