Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria in 1984 and moved to London when she was four. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The Icarus Girl,which she wrote while she was still at school, and two plays, Juniper's Whitening and Victimese, both published by Methuen.

'Rich and witty ... it confirms Helen Oyeyemi as a true original' Ali Smith 'Powerful ... wonderfully unsettling ... Oyeyemi's raw style is great' Time Out 'Lyrical and deeply textured ... it repays slow, careful reading, and your copy may, like mine, end up with underlinings and scribbles highlighting juicy phrases' Sunday Telegraph 'Beautiful ... this is about the difficulties of knowing who you are, especially if you are born of several incompatible cultures. It has the ring of truth' The Times