Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, published in 2001, is an award- winning young adult novel following Callum’s, a Nought (white), and Sephy’s, a Cross (Black), love story. The characters navigate a world divided by race, reflecting the historical context of the civil rights movement. Blackman’s contemporary and detailed exploration of racism, segregation and equality means the novel has become synonymous with representing young people of colour to an equal extent for perhaps the first time.

Blackman’s fiction text is her response to directly tackle the topic of racism taking inspiration from her own experience growing up as a Black British woman, and the anger she felt regarding Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the Metropolitan Police’s mishandling of the enquiry that followed. To explore these themes of racism, inequality and segregation, Blackman creates an alternate history, where Black people are the elite upper-class, and white people are the mistreated second-class citizens.

Therefore, Noughts and Crosses intends to instigate conversations about equality for people of colour in a way that makes it more understandable and comfortable to white people, as they can imagine themselves to be the victims of racism and discrimination through the characters’ experiences. The novel is written in a style and tone to make the topic more accessible for younger audiences.