Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1977, moved to Bushwick in Brooklyn, New York City, at age 4. After earning an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, she published her first novel, American Street, in 2017. American Street, which was a National Book Award finalist for Young People’s Literature, tells the story of Fabiola Toussaint, a Haitian teenager who immigrates to Detroit alone after U.S. immigration refuses to let her mother into the country. Zoboi followed American Street with Pride (2018), a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813). In Zoboi’s version, a Haitian-Dominican teenager from Bushwick, Brooklyn, fulfills the role of Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet. In total, Zoboi has published five YA novels, two Middle-Grade novels, and one picture book. She also edited the short-story anthology Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America (2019). Her novel, (S)Kin, which came out February 11, 2025, is a YA fantasy novel that incorporates the Caribbean legend of the soucouyant, a magical creature that is human by day but a flying fireball by night. Zoboi currently lives in New Jersey with her family.