Past Participle

Jane Labous is an award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster known for her frontline coverage of human rights and gender issues, always telling the powerful human stories behind the headlines. Her debut novel, THE CHAMELEON GIRL, is published in Nigeria by Lagos-based publisher, Farafina Books. Jane read English and French at Jesus College, Oxford, before spending nearly two decades working as a freelance stringer and foreign correspondent for international press and INGOs, most often out of Dakar, Senegal. This while developing her creative art as a writer, filmmaker and novelist, drawing on her insider knowledge of the aid sector and foreign journalism, and her unique experience of both expat and local family life in Ngor, Dakar.Jane's credits span a vista of international outlets, including The Independent, The Times, Geographical, The LA Times and BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent. She has also worked as a writer and filmmaker for aid/humanitarian agencies including the UN, the World Health Organisation, Save The Children, and Amnesty International. She has won the BBC Radio 4 and Royal Geographical Society Documentary Award, the Merck More than a Mother Media Recognition and Film Award for Francophone African Countries, and a European Journalism Centre Development Reporting Grant. Her fiction has been longlisted for the Bath Novel Prize and the Santa Fe Writers' Project Literary Award.As a devoted single parent, Jane often writes stories, characters and locations to honour her daughter, who is half-Senegalese, reflecting their diverse family experience. Together, they love long walks, picnics and adventures in the sea air, gardening, painting, and lots and lots of reading...

An original and truly gripping read. There are so many strands, twist and turns. Lily is a beautiful and courageous character. Her nurturing attitude to her children together with her courage and determination to uncover the truth at whatever cost, makes us want to be with her every step of the way. A love story and an expose. It will be on someone's shortlist for sure. - Jane Teverson, Author; PAST PARTICIPLE is a captivating story of murder and imperialist corruption, of friendship and motherhood and of the past haunting the present, told through the interlinking stories of two women. The novel tackles an important subject matter, but in a way that doesn't feel hectoring or didactic. It recognises the nuances of power dynamics, personal desires and social and political realities in framing how people act and why. The novel offers a strong critique of western imperialism, attentive to the macro and micro applications of that, alongside a dynamic and moving story. - Kieran Devaney, Author and Literary Editor; The past is another country you can never entirely escape, a feeling shared by Vivienne and Lily, two women a generation and a continent apart. They should have nothing in common; they should certainly never become friends. Past Participle is a love story full of psychological suspense, evoking life in Dakar, Senegal, and Dorset, England, in equal measure. It explores friendship, history, and what happens when good deeds lead to bad outcomes. Vivienne and Lily are strong, independent women, but their success comes at a cost. In describing their colliding worlds is where Jane Labous excels. She has an eye for detail, beautifully creating the thick heat of Dakar alongside the cold seascapes of the Dorset coast. A sweeping story that pulls you in, PAST PARTICIPLE leaves you constantly wondering: what would I have done? Anne Hamilton, Author and Literary Editor; This novel is perfection. I am *that* obsessed with Past Participle that I want to tell everyone about it! Again, I love this novel, it's brilliant. Claire Strombeck, Literary Editor