Born in 1963, Alex spent most of his childhood in social services care. Alex’s first novel, Brixton Rock, was published to critical acclaim by BlackAmber Books in 1999. His other novels include East of Acre Lane (Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, 2001), The Seven Sisters/Home Boys (Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, 2003), Island Songs (Allison & Busby, 2005), Checkers, co-written with Mark Parham, (X-Press, 2006) and The Dirty South (Serpents Tail, 2008). Alex was awarded an MBE for services to literature in 2008.
Alex wrote and performed his own one man show, Uprising (2011), produced by Tara Arts, which toured the UK. Alex’s first young adult novel, Liccle Bit, was published by Little, Brown in 2015 and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2015. Shame & Scandal, Alex’s debut play, played to sold out audiences at the Albany Theatre, Deptford in 2015.
Crongton Knights, the follow-up novel to Liccle Bit (Little, Brown, 2016) won the Guardian’s Children’s fiction award for 2016, the Renaissance Quiz Writers’ Choice Award and was shortlisted for the 2017 Bookseller Young Adult prize. Other books in the Crongton series include Straight Outta Crongton (2017), Stain Boys (2018) and Home Girl (2019).
Steve McQueen based an episode of his SmallAxe series for BBC on Alex’s life (broadcast in Autumn 2020).
Alex Wheatle passed away on 16 March 2025.
