Her parents were both from Barbados and had come to Britain as part of the "Windrush generation"; her father Joe was a bus driver and her mother Ruby worked in a pyjama factory.

[12] She became the first person of colour writer to work on Doctor Who in 2018[13] (something almost accomplished by Robin Mukherjee 29 years earlier, during the run of the original series with the unmade Alixion).

[14] Blackman's award-winning Noughts & Crosses series (beginning in 2001), exploring love, racism, and violence, is set in a fictional alternative Britain.

Explaining her choice of title, in a 2007 interview for the BBC's Blast website, Blackman said that noughts and crosses is "one of those games that nobody ever plays after childhood, because nobody ever wins".

[22][23][24] In her acceptance address at the British Library in October 2022, she named Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace as the International Writer of Courage with whom she would share the prize.

[25] In November 2023, the exhibition Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories opened at the British Library (on show until 25 February 2024), celebrating and contextualizing her career.

[26][27][28] As described by Wallpaper magazine, it "shines a light on Blackman's journey as an author, while touching upon social issues represented in her novels....

[32] In August 2014, Malorie Blackman was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.