Lesley Lokko

Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic and the author of ten best-selling novels. She is currently head of school at the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture. She completed her architectural training at The Bartlett School of Architecture in 1994, and her PhD from the University of London in 2007. She has taught at schools of architecture in the US, the UK and South Africa. Lokko is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (2000) and has been an ongoing contributor to discourses around identity, race, African urbanism and the speculative nature of African architectural space and practice. She is a regular juror at international competitions and symposia, and is a long-term contributor to the BBC World Service. In 2004 Lokko transitioned from academic to novelist with the publication of Sundowners, and has since followed with nine further best-sellers, which have been translated into fifteen languages.