Foreword

"I was born and brought up a 'Jo'burg girl' in what has been one of the world's most openly racist countries: South Africa. I was sent to a whites-only school. It was like being brought up to be a horse with blinkers. Luckily when I left school, I met people who challenged me... and I was able to take off the blinkers. I began to feel very angry about the terrible things that I could see I was part of. You can read a little more about what happened by reading my answers to some frequently-asked questions.

But it was years later that I started writing - in exile in England. When my first book Journey to Jo'burg was banned in South Africa, it was actually a spur to further writing! Hundreds of thousands of children were reading the book around the world but the apartheid government refused to let South African children read it until 1991. (In England it is now a Collins Modern Classic.) After Nelson Mandela was released from jail, I was also able to return freely after 26 years. No Turning Back was my first South African novel that I was able to research directly in the country. My short stories in Out of Bounds sweep across the apartheid years - with one story per decade - and into the first years of 'post-apartheid'.

Now I am writing about children in other parts of the world too. The Other Side of Truth follows the flight to London of two children whose father is an outspoken journalist in Nigeria at the time of the dictator General Abacha. I was delighted and honoured to be awarded the Carnegie Medal for this book.

I have always loved stories. Books are windows to other worlds. There are so many stories to be told about young people who do amazing things to survive. I hope to continue exploring and writing about them."

Beverley Naidoo