Ayana Gray On The Privilege Of Bringing Black Fantasy To The YA Page
essence.comNew York Times bestselling author on the back of her first-ever release, Beasts of Prey, in just September of last year, this young adult fantasy author and a lover of all things monsters, mythos, and magic is making sure young Black children feel seen in the medium she loves most. “As a young child, there was virtually no fantasy [media] with kids who looked anything like me, she said. “And if there were kids who looked like me, they were the side characters.
They didn’t make it throughout the whole series.”Seeing need for representation amid what she described as “a very whitewashed reading experience,” Gray became inspired while completing her junior year of college at the University of Arkansas.
studying abroad in Ghana.‘I was there studying, but also really struck by the landscape and the people and seeing Black people in spaces that I had never seen before,” she said of the experience. “Like I’d never seen Black royalty.
I’d never seen only Black people on billboards. You go to the store and all of the hair products are for my hair texture.”“I left Ghana really wanting to write a fantasy story that captured all of the power and excellence and all of the cool things that I saw.”Taking about five years from start to finish, Gray constructed a magical, mystical adventure inspired by heavily researched traditional mythologies across the African continent. “The monsters you read about in this series are from lore from different parts of Africa,” she said.
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