JANE LABOUS
THE SNOW PRESS
The Snow Press is a book imprint created in 2023 to publish books by award-winning writer and journalist Jane Labous. The Snow Press focuses mainly on literary, women's and upmarket bookclub fiction, as well as upmarket psychological thrillers.
BOOKS
PAST PARTICIPLE
On a rainy night after a wild party in Dakar in 1987, Vivienne Hughes is involved in a car crash. Her vehicle hits the moped of a young Senegalese doctor, Aimé Tunkara, killing him. Three decades later, Aimé’s younger sister, Lily, now a high-flying human rights lawyer in Dakar, decides to examine the facts of the accident. As she faces increasing hostility from the local community, she turns to Vivienne, the only remaining witness – but is either woman prepared for the truth?
Loosely inspired by the British case of Harry Dunn and Anne Sacoolas, the novel examines the moral complexities of such an incident transplanted to a West African context. A modern reworking of The Constant Gardener, putting women at the forefront of the action, this multi-layered story asks, what price is a life?
AUTHORS
Jane Labous is an author and journalist writing about the most compelling human stories of our time, most often out of West Africa.
As a freelance journalist, Jane has spent nearly two decades working and living between Dakar, Senegal, and Poole, Dorset, while developing her creative art as a writer, filmmaker and novelist. She's collaborated with women and young people all over West Africa to tell stories via features, film and radio, and she has deep family connections in Ngor, Dakar. Her credits include everyone from the BBC and regular slots on Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent, to The Independent, Voice of America, the UN, and many more besides.
Jane has won numerous awards for her writing, broadcasting and frontline film-making, including the Guardian Development Journalism Prize, the Radio 4 & Royal Geographical Society Journey of a Lifetime Award, the European Centre for Journalism Development Reporting Grant, the Merck More Than A Mother Media Recognition & Film Award for French-Speaking African Countries, and Best Documentary at the Southampton Film Festival.
For many years Jane was married to a Dakar firefighter, and as a white mother to her mixed-race, half-Senegalese daughter, Jane writes fiction with intention and sensitivity to honour her daughter and reflect their diverse family experience.
Jane’s first novel, The Chameleon Girl, set in Dakar and featuring a cast of West African and British characters, is published in Nigeria by Lagos-based publisher, Farafina Books.
