Bolu Babalola Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Bolu Babalola is a British Nigerian journalist, lawyer, and author from London who loves to describe herself as a writer and romcomoisseur. In her earlier years, she went to the University of California and Los Angeles from where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law.

She would later on graduate with a degree in American History and Politics from the same institution. She got a distinction on her masters degree which was on the album Lemonade by Beyonce.

She is now an author of retorts, scripts and books in which she writes about women who love and have distinct voices but still love audaciously. Babalola has said that she believes that women ought to embody the trope of being both beast and beauty.
Before she became a bestselling author she was BBC Comedy’s assistant producer and “Netflix and Chill” her debut story was on the shortlist for the 4th Estate B4ME prize. Bolu made her debut as a fiction author when she published Love in Colour, a short story collection that retells the mythical folklore that many people around the world grew up with.

Since the publishing of the collection it has received critical reviews from media outlets and been praised by authors such as Candice Carty-Williams and Meg Cabot.

Growing up, Bolu Babalola was a huge love of books and her parents said that as a toddler she would tear out the pages from books and eat them. According to her father, this was the time he knew that she was destined to become an author since she found words so delicious.
When she was older, she would become a voracious reader consuming all manner of romance novels that belonged to her mother. She also spent a lot of time making up short stories in her head and regularly writing a column on her father’s computer. By the time she was nine Babalola knew that she loved writing and at that very tender age she wrote her first story.

When she was in secondary school and typing out her stories in Comic Sans, she began thinking that maybe there might be people that would love to read her stories. She started giving out her short stories to several friends and it was not long before her classmates were hooked and demanding weekly instalments.
While she loved her hobby of writing during this time, she was also doing very well in school and this perhaps resulted in complications when she decided to go to college. More than fifteen years after high school, she has the privilege of being a bestselling author on the Sunday Times and is also a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

WhEN Bolu Babalola went to college she decided to follow in the footsteps of her father and become a lawyer even though being an author was always a dream.
She would go on to graduate with a degree in law and a masters in American history and politics. The focus on feminism and history in her degree influenced her penchant for writing well rounded female characters.

She has asserted that she knew that she needed to find a more creative career once she graduated with a degree in law. She also loved the fact that creatives can wear jeans to work and work on whatever they wanted which is what led to her finding a job with the BBC.
Bolu got started as a writers assistant working on television comedy before she rose through the ranks to become Assistant Producer. This was a role that she enjoyed though she still deserted to work in sweatpants and tell her own stories and felt that she could not push herself to the limits.
Once she was shortlisted for an industry award for her work in comedy, she knew that she could make it in fiction. She quit and wrote her first collection within a few months.

As a person that had always loved writing and being around writers, the idea for the short story collection came to Babalola as if by accident. She had been trying to get into creative spaces for months when she applied for a production internship at the BBC and was unfortunate not to get it.

While she eventually got into the BBC, she was forced to leave as there is not much room at the top in TV. To fulfill her potential, she knew she had to leave. Given that she was enrolled for a masters degree at University of California and Los Angeles, she thought she could combine the two.

Writing her thesis on Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” she had the idea of taking the rich folk tales from around the world and giving them a diverse and feminist perspective. She published “Love In Colour,” her debut in 2020.

Bolu Babalola’s “Love in Colour” is a work that features the legends of the Middle East, Greece, West Africa and many other places in the world. Unlike many of her contemporaries, the author does not revisit the Euro centric folk tales which have been made very popular across the world.

Stories by the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm Brothers are told from a male lens and do not have any feminist views and this is what she wanted to rectify. Rather than stick to convention, the author provides sensual and vivid retellings of ancient romances that go back to the past but still manage to have a familiarity that is very current.

In the collection, Babalola takes her readers to the lands of Zhinu the Chinese weaving goddess, Osun the Yoruban deity and a famed 19th century Ghanaian royal named Yaa. All of these fall in love but in a very modern romantic context. The anthology has ten retellings and three original stories that speak to the author’s long time passion for the romance genre.

She also takes the opportunity to dive deep into the folk tales that prioritize the passion and triumph of women of color. The novel is an excellent way of disrupting modernist ideas about romance which has for so long been about white western women. The stories in Love in Colour are centered on women of color and explore the pain and struggles they have but also the connection, joy and love that can come out of romantic relationships.