Malorie Blackman

I've got to write about racism.

And I have always, always kicked against people sticking labels on me.

or trying to put me in a box and say, that's your lane and you can't move out of it.

And so I kind of felt, okay, I have 49 books under my belt.

Not all of them are in print, but I had 49 books, published books under my belt.

And I saw, okay, for my 50th one, now I'm ready to write about racism.

And it was around the time of the Stephen Lawrence case.

And I remember seeing the docudrama about how the Lawrence family had been treated.

And I was so angry.

God, it made me so angry.

And I thought, I need to write about racism.

I need to do something.

I want to do something to kind of address what it's like to be considered a second class citizen and treated like that.

And then I kind of thought, should I write a story about slavery and the legacy of slavery?

And all my friends, you know, black, white, Asian, whatever, it was... But I said, I was thinking of writing a story about slavery.

What do you reckon of racism?

And it was like... And for my friends of colour, it was kind of, oh, God, that's so painful.

Why do you want to go there?

And for my sort of white friends, it was, well, that was so long ago.

Why do you want to go there?