Lauren Beukes

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Lauren Beukes
Lauren Beukes, dConstruct 2012 - 2 cropped.jpg
Lauren Beukes at dConstruct, 2012.
Born (1976-06-05) 5 June 1976 (age 47)
Johannesburg, South Africa
OccupationWriter
NationalitySouth African
Period(2005–present)
Genre
Signature
Lauren Beukes signature.svg
Website
laurenbeukes.com

Lauren Beukes (born 5 June 1976) is a South African novelist, short story writer, journalist and television scriptwriter.

Contents

Early life

Lauren Beukes was born 5 June 1976. She grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. [1] She attended Roedean School in Johannesburg, [2] and has an MA in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. She worked as a freelance journalist for ten years, including two years in New York and Chicago. [3]

Career

Books

She is the author of The Shining Girls , a novel about a time-traveling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around. It was published on 15 April 2013 by the Umuzi imprint of Random House Struik in South Africa, [4] [5] on 25 April 2013 by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom, [6] and on 4 June 2013 by Mulholland Books in the United States. [7] HarperCollins had won the international rights to the book in a fierce bidding war with several other publishers. [8] [9]

Beukes at the launch of Moxyland in 2008 Lauren Beukes.jpg
Beukes at the launch of Moxyland in 2008

The Shining Girls won The Strand Magazine Critic's Best Novel Award, [10] the RT Thriller of the Year, [11] Exclusive Books' Readers Choice Award, [12] and South Africa's most prestigious literary award, the University of Johannesburg Prize. [13] The TV rights for the novel have been acquired by MRC and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way according to The Hollywood Reporter . [14]

Her previous novel, Zoo City , a hardboiled thriller about crime, magic, the music industry, refugees and redemption set in a re-imagined Johannesburg won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award, [15] and the 2010 Kitschies Red Tentacle for best novel. [16] It was short-listed for the 2010 BSFA Award for best novel, [17] the 2011 World Fantasy award for best novel, [18] the 2010–2011 University of Johannesburg Creative Writing Prize, [19] the M-Net Literary Awards, [20] the Nielsen's Booksellers' Choice Award 2011 [21] and long-listed for South Africa's Sunday Times Fiction Prize 2011 [22] and the 2012 International Dublin Literary Award. [23] The cover artwork received the 2010 BSFA award for best art. [24] The novel has also been short-listed for the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in France for best foreign novel, best translation by Laurent Philibert-Caillat and best cover by Joey Hi-Fi. [25]

The film rights have been optioned by South African producer, Helena Spring. [26]

Her first novel was Moxyland, a cyberpunk novel set in a future Cape Town. Both books were first published in South Africa by Jacana Publishing and released internationally by Osprey Publishing's Angry Robot imprint.

Her first book, the non-fiction Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past (Oshun 2004) was long-listed for the 2006 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award.

She has published short stories in several anthologies including "Further Conflicts" (NewCon Press 2011), Home Away (Zebra 2010), Touch: Stories of Contact (Zebra 2009), Open: Erotic Stories from South African Women Writers [27] (Oshun 2008), FAB (Umuzi 2007), African Road: New Writing from Southern Africa (New Africa Books 2005), 180 Degrees: New Fiction by South African Women Writers (Oshun 2006), and Urban 03 (New Africa Books 2005).

In July 2014, Beukes published a new novel called Broken Monsters, which is set in Detroit, Michigan. [28] [29]

Her first short fiction collection, Slipping: Stories, Essays, and Other Writing (Tachyon Publications), was released in October 2016. [30]

Film and television

As head writer for Clockwork Zoo, she was part of the development team that created South Africa's first half-hour animated TV series, URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika . She also wrote 12 episodes of the Playhouse Disney show, Florrie's Dragons for Wish Films and episodes of the animated series Mouk for French production company Millimages.

She directed a feature-length documentary on Miss Gay Western Cape called Glitterboys & Ganglands. The film has shown at various festivals including the Atlanta Film Festival, Encounters, [31] Out in Africa and won best LGBT film at the San Diego Black Film Festival. [32]

She was also one of the writers, together with Ben Trovato and Tumiso Tsukudu on the pilot of controversial ZA News, a Spitting Image -style satire show with puppets based on the work of South African cartoonist, Zapiro. The pilot was commissioned by the SABC but never broadcast. [33]

Her novel, The Shining Girls, was adapted into a television series, Shining Girls by MRC and Appian Way Productions. [34] It premiered on Apple TV+ on 29 April 2022. [35]

Journalism

As a journalist, her articles have been published in a wide range of local and international magazines including The Hollywood Reporter , Nature Medicine and Colors as well as The Sunday Times Lifestyle, Marie Claire , Elle , Cosmopolitan and SL Magazine .

She won "Best Columnist Western Cape" in the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards in 2007 and 2008. [36] [37]

Comics

Beukes made her comics writing debut with "All The Pretty Ponies" in Vertigo's Strange Adventures one-shot. [38] She also wrote "The Hidden Kingdom", an arc of Fairest (issues #8–13), a spin-off of Bill Willingham's Eisner Award-winning Fables series, [39] and a Durham Red story for 2000 AD's 40th anniversary special issue. Her series Survivors' Club , illustrated by Dale Halvorsen and Ryan Kelly was published by Vertigo October 2015 – June 2016 for nine issues. Before its cancellation the series was under development as a TV series.

Bibliography

Short fiction

Beukes has published short fiction in various collections:

Other

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References

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