BIO

Jane Labous is an award-winning author and journalist writing the human stories of our time, most often out of West Africa.

Jane attended an Essex comprehensive before reading English & French at Jesus College, Oxford, and has since gained a reputation for powerful writing and storytelling. Her credits include the BBC and Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent, The Independent, Voice of America and the UN, and she's consulted for numerous INGOs including the WHO, Save The Children and Plan International.

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.

Jane's indie documentary project, Angels, filmed in Dakar, toured the international festival circuit, and won Best Documentary at Southampton Film Festival. The story of two Senegalese women's heartbreaking fight to have a baby against the odds has played a role in breaking down stigma about infertility in Senegal.

Jane now works for a global aid agency providing humanitarian and educational support to children in the Global South and conflict zones. Jane covers global issues such as climate change, the hunger crisis and children's rights in conflict zones, working alongside colleagues in West Africa to tell the human stories of our time, while empowering women and young people to tell their own.

Jane also writes fiction. Her debut novel, The Chameleon Girl, is published in Nigeria by Lagos-based publisher, Farafina Books, and available on Amazon.

Jane's latest novel, as yet unpublished, was longlisted for the Bath Novel Prize 2022. Her second novel, She Shines Like A Diamond, is currently longlisted for The Santa Fe Writers' Project Literary Award. Jane is seeking an agent.