Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is the instant New York Times, International bestselling & Award-winning author of Ace of Spades, Where Sleeping Girls Lie, Four Eids and a Funeral and her newest book, The Heirs. Ace of Spades was billed as ‘Get Out meets Gossip Girl’, Entertainment Weekly has called it “Summer 2021 hottest YA debut.” Where Sleeping Girls Lie is another YA contemporary romance about a girl new to boarding school who discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears. Her most recent book, Four Eids and a Funeral, is about ex-best friends who must work together to save their Islamic Center for demolition. In 2024 she was a world book day author with her title The Doomsday Date and she also has a Marvel Spider-Verse story coming out this year where she writes a new Spider-Verse character known as Spider-UK/Zarina Zahari.
Born and raised in Croydon, South London, Faridah moved to the Scottish Highlands for her undergraduate degree where she completed a BA in English Literature. She also has an MA in Shakespeare Studies from Kings College London.
She is a Morris Award 2022 Finalist, the winner of the Books Are My Bag 2021 Reader’s Award for Young Adult Fiction, and the winner of the 53rd NAACP Image Awards in the Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. Abíké-Íyímídé established and runs a mentorship scheme for unagented writers of colour, helping them on their journey to get published. She has also written for NME, The Bookseller, Readers Digest and gal-dem.
“Faridah Abike-Iyimide brings such wonderful energy to her interviews. You can feel the characters she has created leap off of the page, joining the interview as well. Not only does she provide stories that young people connect with, but she is a master in dissecting classics like Hamlet to provide a vehicle for students to find meaning in the books they are reading.” — BookBreak, 2025