Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi is an American writer of Haitian descent and an author of young adult fiction. She is best known for her young adult novel American Street, which was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Zoboi was born in Haiti under the name Pascale Philanthrope, immigrated from Port-au-Prince with her mother at the age of four, and grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, in the 1980s. The move was difficult for Zoboi, who was alone in Brooklyn since her family was in Haiti and her mother was working. She speaks of moving from Haiti to New York as an event that shaped her destiny. Four years later, Zoboi returned to Haiti to visit her grandmother. When they tried to return to the United States, Zoboi was not allowed back in. She stayed in Haiti with relatives for three months while her mother worked to secure her return. After she came back, when she was in fifth grade, her teachers placed her in an English as a Second Language course, mistakenly believing that Zoboi could not speak English. This made her feel “invisible.” She began studying poetry and literature so that she would be noticed.

Before becoming an author, Zoboi worked for a newspaper and in a bookstore. Interested in writing, she attended creative writing classes at Vermont College of Fine Arts and earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

In marriage, Zoboi took her husband’s surname and changed her first name to Ibi, which means “rebirth” in Yoruba, echoing her surname Pascale, associated with Easter.

Ibi lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with her husband and their three children.