Lauren Beukes is an award-winning novelist who also writes comics, screenplays, TV shows and occasionally journalism.
Her novel, Zoo City (2010) which the New York Times described as “an energetic phantasmagorical noir” won the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle.
She is also the author of Moxyland, a dystopian consumertopia thriller and a non-fiction, Maverick: Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past.
Her new novel, The Shining Girls, about a time-travelling serial killer is due out in Spring 2013.
As a screenwriter, she is currently adapting Zoo City for South African producer Helena Spring. She’s previously worked on the satirical political puppet show, Z News and the travelogue of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: The South African Story.
She’s written on kids shows for Disney UK, including Mouk and Florrie’s Dragons and was the showrunner on South Africa’s first full length animated TV series, URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika, which ran for 104 episodes from 2006-2009 on SABC.
She made her comics debut with All The Pretty Ponies, a short for Vertigo’s Strange Adventures. She is one of the contributing writers to Fairest, a spin-off of Bill Willingham’s Eisner-award-winning series, Fables. Her arc, The Hidden Kingdom, a dark Tokyo twist on the legend of Rapunzel, with art by Inaki Miranda is out in trade paperback in July 2013.
In 2010, she directed the documentary Glitterboys & Ganglands, about Cape Town’s biggest female impersonation beauty pageant. The film won best LGBT at the San Diego Black Film Festival.