Lesley Lokko

Lesley Lokko trained as an architect, taught and practiced in the US, UK and South Africa for a decade and then chucked it all in to become a best-selling novelist. Her debut novel, Sundowners, was published in 2004 and was a Guardian Top 40 novel; her recent novel, Bitter Chocolate, was on the WH Smith bestseller charts for 3 months. She designed her own home in Accra, Ghana, which you can see on her website (www.lesleylokko.com) and her latest novel, Rich Girl, Poor Girl, partly set in Zimbabwe, is out in June 2009. Her novels are unabashedly commercial, following in the footsteps of authors like Jackie Collins, Barbara Taylor-Bradford and Penny Vincenzi, but with a difference – she writes about Africa and Africans (especially gorgeous African men!) but paints a very different picture of the continent – no starving kids, glorious empty landscapes and corrupt regimes…her Africa is modern, cosmopolitan, vibrant, messy, complex…just the way it really is! She splits her time between Accra, London and Johannesburg, although not simultaneously.