Bio
Bolu Babalola is an up-and-coming author, screenwriter, content creator and journalist. She was born in Southwark London in 1991 to Nigerian Yoruba parents. After having studies law at the University of Reading, the author obtained a master’s degree in American Politics & History from University College London, writing her thesis on Beyoncé’s album Lemonade.
After completing her educational career, Babalola began working as an assistant writer and producer for the BBC. She has contributed to various productions such as The Javone Prince Show and Ackee and Saltfish, and wrote and produced the television show Big Age (2021) herself. Various of Babalola’s columns and pieces of criticism have also been published in media outlets such as Dazed, Vice, GQ and Stylist.
In 2016, Babalola published her first short story, ‘Netflix & Chill’, which was later shortlisted for the 4th Estate’s B4ME competition in 2016. Her subsequent debut novel Love in Colour, published in 2020, is a bestselling collection of short stories inspired by folk tales and mythology around the world. It places romantic elements alongside a larger discussion of black womanhood, and has been translated into multiple languages. In 2022, her second novel Honey and Spice came out, covering a love story between members of the Afro-Caribbean society in the UK. Together with Nels Abbey, Yomi Adegoke and others, she additionally contributed to the essay compilation Of This Our Country: Acclaimed Nigerian Writers on the Home, Identity and Culture They Know.
Babalola calls herself a self-proclaimed Romcom expert. She loves writing about love and wants to write for and about Black women. For her, there is nothing hopeless in being a romantic, if you love yourself enough. She believes that women can do serious work while still looking good doing it.
Selected Prizes and Nominations
• 4th Estate B4ME Prize
Bibliography
Abbey, Nels, et al. Of This Our Country: Acclaimed Nigerian Writers on the Home, Identity and Culture They Know. The Borough Press, 2021.
Akinpelu, Oluwafunmilayo. “From Third-Generation Nigerian Literature in English to the Twenty-First Century.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 54, no. 3, 2024: pp. 147-165.
Babalola, Bolu. “Netflix And Chill.” Medium, 26th of June 2016, Web.
–. Honey and Spice. William Morrow, 2022.
–. Love in Colour. Headline, 2020.
–, producer. Big Age. Channel 4, 2021.
–. “This is the significance of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s Apes**t video.” Stylist, 2017, Web.
–. “Michael Coel Looks Beyond Binaries With ‘I May Destroy You’.” Paper, 20 July 2020, Web.
–. “The Innate Black Britishness of I May Destroy You.” Vulture, 3 Aug 2020, Web.
–. “Nigeria’s Millenials Are Battling a Gerontocracy.” GQ, 30 Oct 2020, Web.
–. “Bolu Babalola interview: ‘Stop telling black writers they’re of the moment. This is my life’.” Interview with Susanna Goldsbrough. The Telegraph, 30 Oct 2020. Web.
–. “Bolu Babalola: ‘It was mortifying meeting Michael B Jordan after my tweet about him went viral’.” Interview with Nosheen Iqbal. The Guardian, 2 Aug 2020, Web.
Beyer, Charlotte. "Centring Women of Colour: Decolonising the Literature Curriculum with Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire and Bolu Babalola’s Love in Colour." Decolonising the Literature Curriculum. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022, pp. 45-63.
Bidisha. “Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola review – playful campus romcom.” Rev. of Honey and Spice, by Bolua Babalola. The Guardian, 31 July 2022, Web.
Cole, Alyssa. “Bolu Babalola’s Stories Reset the Idea of Who Sees and Who Is Seen.” Rev. of Love in Color, by Bolu Bablola. The New York Times, 31 April 2021, Web.
Pérez-Fernández, Irene. “Black British love matters: Asserting transformative power of love in Bolu Babalola’s Love in Colour: Mythical Tales Around the World Retold.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing, vol. 60, no. 2, 2024: pp. 1-15.
