BIO

Jane Labous is an award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster. Her debut novel, The Chameleon Girl, was published in Nigeria by Farafina Books in 2022.

Jane read French and English at Oxford University (Jesus College) before spending nearly two decades working as a foreign correspondent for international press and INGOs, most often out of Senegal, West Africa.

Jane is known for her frontline coverage of human rights and gender issues, always telling the powerful human stories behind the social, humanitarian and political issues in the news. This while developing her creative art as a writer, filmmaker and novelist, drawing on her insider knowledge of the aid sector and foreign journalism, and her unique experience of both expat and family life in Ngor, Senegal.

Jane's work has appeared in The Independent, The Times, The LA Times and BBC News Online and many other publications, as well as regularly on BBC Africa, Voice of America and BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent. She has won the BBC Radio 4 and Royal Geographical Society Documentary Award, the Merck More than a Mother Media Recognition & Film Award for Francophone African Countries, and a European Journalism Centre Development Reporting Grant. Her fiction has been longlisted for the Bath Novel Prize and the Santa Fé Writers' Project Literary Award.

As a devoted single parent, Jane often writes stories, characters and locations to honour her wonderful daughter, who is half-Senegalese, reflecting their own diverse family experience. Happy to be an #aspergirl, Jane has also begun exploring autism and stories of women on the spectrum (otherwise known as women with superpowers!) via her creative work.

Jane's latest novel, Past Participle, will be published in May 2023, by Afsana Press.