Ibi Zoboi was born in Haiti and immigrated to New York with her mother when she was four-years-old.
Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of books for children and teens, including American Street, a National Book Award Finalist, Pride, a modern remix of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the Walter Award and LA Times Book Prize-winning Punching the Air, co-written with Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam. Ibi is a two-time Coretta Scott King Award honoree for The People Remember, her debut picture book, and Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler. She is the winner of the 2024 CSK Award for Nigeria Jones and the editor of the anthology Black Enough: Stories of Being Young and Black in America. Okoye to the People is her Black Panther novel for Marvel.
Ibi has appeared on CBS This Morning, MSNBC’s The Reid Out alongside Yusef Salaam, PBS’s Book View Now, and MSNBC’s Velshi Banned Book Club. Her writing has been published in Time Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, the Horn Book Magazine, and The Rumpus, among others. As an educator, she received several grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council for her community-based programs for teen girls in both Brooklyn and Haiti, partnering with Haiti Cultural Exchange. She’s worked for arts organizations such as Teachers & Writers Collaborative and Community Word Project as a writer-in-residence and teaching artist in New York City public schools.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in New York City, Ibi lives in New Jersey with her family.
Photo credit: Nicole Mondestin Photography
awards & Honors
National Book Award Finalist (American Street, 2017)
New York Times Notable Book (American Street, 2017)
Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature (American Street, 2018)
Muriel Becker Award from the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English (American Street, 2019)
The Walter Award, Teen Category (Punching the Air, 2021)
L.A. Times Book Prize, Young Adult Literature (Punching the Air, 2021)
Boston Globe - Horn Book Award Honor, Fiction (Punching the Air, 2021)
Lee Bennett Hopkins Honor Award for Children’s Poetry (Punching the Air, 2021)
Coretta Scott King Book Award Honor (The People Remember, 2022)
Yoto Carnegie Medal, shortlist (Punching the Air, 2022)
The Walter Award Honor, Young Readers Category (Star Child, 2023)
Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor (Star Child, 2023)
Children & YA Literary Award from the Black Caucus of ALA, Non-fiction (Star Child, 2023)
Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner (Nigeria Jones, 2024)
