Lauren Beukes
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laurenbeukes.com
Lauren Beukes
@laurenbeukes.com
9.7K followers 220 following 1.1K posts
Novelist, scriptwriter, imaginative futurist, recovering journalist. Winner of the Arthur C Clarke and the University of Johannesburg Prize. Author of The Shining Girls (now on Apple TV), Zoo City and Bridge.
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laurenbeukes.com
lauren beukes in blue hair days in Cape Town stares adoringly at little calico cat
November 20, 2025 at 5:51 PM
laurenbeukes.com
this is absolute representation of my process:
a funny and accurate bar graph representing the creative process from work starts on one end to deadline on the other. from left to right: a large red band that takes up most of the bar: work begins: “fuck off”. a narrow yellow band marked “panic” and even thinner band marked “all the work while crying.” Deadline
November 9, 2025 at 2:33 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Mamdani poster format reads "which is not inconsistent for any of us going through some shit right now (all of us really) because irreverence and our delight in each other makes the world better and more bearable. We all contain multitudes all at once, all the time. And our art (and our dumb jokes) are the fire we light against the darkness."
November 9, 2025 at 12:12 AM
laurenbeukes.com
Mamdani poster generator with bespoke text that reads "AH, THE INTERNET for holding simultaneous conversations about sillyh writer-y Mamdani memes and also dead moms, sick cats and grief.
November 9, 2025 at 12:03 AM
laurenbeukes.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:00 AM
laurenbeukes.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:58 PM
laurenbeukes.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:49 PM
laurenbeukes.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:43 PM
laurenbeukes.com
I was more articulate on FB, with a longer wordcount. Full text in alt. text.
I've found an amazing palliative care vet so she doesn't have to go into hospital again, who is helping me manage her decline and will help me decide when it's time to go, so she doesn't suffer, so she gets to have a good life as long as we can manage. I recently heard again the bouncing ball theory of grief, that it's a ball bouncing off the hot button of sadness that could get triggered at any moment by the stupidest thing, and as your life continues, the button gets smaller or the room gets bigger or the ball Pokemons into a more adept form that is better at dodging "here's all the terrible agony of your loss all over again for no good reason" button some inconsiderate psychopath asshole installed in the room. Right now, it feels like I'm in that old video game Arkanoid with lots of multiplying buttons with built-in amplifiers that reverb the other griefs, and also they're on fire, and my ball is a clunky idiot that keeps richocheting into them and setting the walls of the room alight. Apparently this gets better. At least I get to choose when my kit can go and fuck knows this is easier to talk about.
November 8, 2025 at 10:54 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Esp. this quote: (full text in alt text)
I felt I had chosen the right thing to do, because I found what I was photographing so outrageous that I couldn’t wait to get back to England and see my pictures published, to show the world how wrong it was. When you’re young and ambitious, you haven’t really worked it all out. You’re drawn to this tragedy, but it doesn’t belong to you – you’re imposing yourself upon the situation. You’re not welcome or invited and you’re stealing in a way. You’re stealing other people’s emotional tragedies. You’re stealing images of people, dead, who haven’t given you consent. I was aware it wasn’t totally right, and I believe it to this day. That’s why I come back here and do the English landscape. I feel as if I have to release myself from my guilt, which I still carry."
October 29, 2025 at 12:37 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Got to shout out the novel that scared me the most for The Stylist's round-up of spooky reads by spooky writers: Mariana Enriquez's Our Share of Night. www.stylist.co.uk/books/best-h... (paywalled).
Black and white photograph of novelist Lauren Beukes against a red background, overlaid with the image of the front cover of Mariana Enriquez's Our Share of Night, white type over a dark blue/black cover featuring the image of a midnight-black hand outstretched and clawing at the air with long golden talons, the skin flecked with gold. "Lauren Beukes recommends… Our Share Of Night by Mariana Enriquez Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez understands that the real horror is people – and everything we’re capable of and how we justify it to ourselves. Set against the backdrop of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ and its aftermath, Our Share Of Night follows a father and son born with a terrible magical gift who are trying to escape a centuries-old cult that wants to enslave them to The Darkness and their own burgeoning influence. There’s plenty of gruesome imagery I will never, ever get out of my head, inspired by bruja witchcraft and political atrocities, but the bloody heart(break) of the story is the familial relationship and all the frightening and awful ways we fail ourselves and each other. "
October 14, 2025 at 10:15 AM
laurenbeukes.com
We also did an album launch for the official soundtrack, curated and mixed by African Dope Records, featuring artists like Krushed & Sorted, Dank and Mix n Blend, available on LastFM www.last.fm/music/Variou... and Spotify open.spotify.com/album/11i5Mf... or your music streamer of choice...
September 10, 2025 at 2:27 PM
laurenbeukes.com
... and part science experiment. As you came in the door, you were handed a vial to take for testing at the lab downstairs. If your sample turned out to be "infected", you'd be given a shot of apple sours in an oversized syringe as the cure.
A young Black South African activist with a zealous look in his eye hands out flyers warning about genetically modified police dogs outside the Book Lounge and coincidentally down the road from South Africa's parliament so people mistook him for a real activist and wouldn't take the flyers. The character was played by actor Anelisa Phewa (the voice of Pax Afrika from URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika, which Lauren Beukes was head-writer on). One of the prototype Moxyland monsters among a collection of the books on display. The monster was handmade by a rural women's sewing group, the Montague Sew-and-Sews, with all proceeds of the merch going directly to the women, and based on artist Michelle Son's original design for the cover critter. A young Black South African man with dreadlocks and a goattee in a white lab coat and white gloves with his face mask pulled down arond his chin holds up a syringe with a suspicious greenish liquid to his mouth ready to take his medicine. In reality, Lauren Beukes' brother Thabo Mataboge self-administering the "cure". Beside him is a notice, black text on white beneath a biohazard symbol that reads "You may have been infected. Please report to your nearest Govt Quarantine Centre immediately for a full evaluation and treatment. Rurals without valid passes may be repatriated. The Health Dept cares about you." The white block is overlaid over a yellow background with black stripes marked "notice: quarantine" Two young South African men in white lab coats and white gloves and masks stand beside a yellow medical biohazards disposal tub in the basement of the Book Lounge, against a backdrop of bookshelves. Both were colleagues at Clockwork Zoo, the animation studio where Lauren Beukes worked at the time. The man on the right is author and animation writer/director, Sam Wilson, whose new novel, The First Murder on Mars, is creepily prescient about a broligarch Mars colonizer and his estranged rebel daughter.
September 10, 2025 at 2:19 PM
laurenbeukes.com
It was part book launch, part tie-in album launch with African Dope Records, part immersive experience with fake activists protesting robot dogs outside, segregated entrances for corporates and non-corporates, actor Rob van Vuuren playing a sleazy exec from the Inatec pharmaceuticals...
South African actor Rob van Vuuren on the couner at the Book Lounge bookstore in front of a crowd at the 2008 launch of Moxyland, playing a sleazy pharmaceutical company exec. Bookstore crowd at the 2008 launch of Moxyland at the Book Lounge in Cape Town. Lauren Beukes four months pregnant, black dress, blonde hair, coloured tear drop necklace. The "corporate entrance" for the Moxyland book launch with two "greeters" (friends of the author who worked at the same animation studio in Cape Town at the time). The young woman on the left has long curly hair, a red and black spotted top and skull necklace, black jeans and white heels, standing casually in front of the security gate, and her colleague on the right is a young woman with blonde hair in a high ponytail, blue jeans and a black button up shirt with a bespoke Moxyland badge, holding flyers. The greeters warmly welcomed people from a fake guest list or sent them at random to the "non-corporate" entrance round the corner. They also handed guests a vial of liquid to take downstairs for testing.
September 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM
laurenbeukes.com
I'm already feeling dazed that my teen is turning 17 next week so this anniversary shouldn't be a shock. I was about 4 months into new human incubation at the Moxyland launch at the Book Lounge in Cape Town and freaked out the owner, Mervyn, when I climbed onto the counter in high heel boots to read
Author Lauren Beukes, blonde and four months pregnant, in a black dress, standing on the counter to read from her debut novel, Moxyland at The Book Lounge in Cape Town in 2008.
September 10, 2025 at 1:54 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Thanks so much, Nathan! I think it's even better. At the very least it was harder to keep track of not just multiple timelines but multiple universes and different iterations of the characters in each of them! (Much more complex than my Shining Girls murder wall: laurenbeukes.com/string-theor...)
September 2, 2025 at 12:26 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Some actual stats on migration from the UK GOV. In 2024: 1 million extensions of stay, 374k EU settlement, 257k citizenship, 163k settlement, 436k study visas, 286k work visas, 71k family visas, 111k asylum seekers, 33k humanitarian www.gov.uk/government/s...
August 27, 2025 at 1:11 PM
laurenbeukes.com
You can absolutely support African literature from afar and good news is that even small amounts of pounds or dollars or Euro or yen or [insert forex currency of choice] go a LONG way in Rands. So if you have even ten bucks to spare, please consider!
Writers on stage at the Open Book Festival A woman presenting at the Open Book Festival. She's wearing a blue dress, a kids book on the white board beside her. A huge black and white photograph behind her. A small audience of teens is watching, including one with a cheeky grin turning to take a photo of the photographer on their cell phone. Readers browsing books for sale at the Open Book Festival. A woman in an amazing crocheted outfit is in the foreground.
July 17, 2025 at 12:45 PM
laurenbeukes.com
My favourite book festival in all the world, Open Book in Cape Town, has fallen foul of funding shortages. If you love African lit, and want to support a vital and electric and critically important festival that highlights African writers, please donate here: booklounge.co.za/product/open...
Image shows two Black women writers laughing and chatting in bright pink outfits on stage at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town Image shows a Black woman storyteller in a t-shirt and peach coloured trousers, kneeling and animatedly reading a kids book to kids and parents at The Book Lounge (the beloved indie bookstore that runs Open Book Festival) Image shows a young Black woman with a natural afro and glasses in a black top and black and white geometric print pinafore, smiling and talking into a microphone in the audience at the Open Book Festival. Out of focus behind her on the left is a young Black man with a lanyard and a film camera. On the right, an older White woman with a red scarf is laughing in delight.
July 17, 2025 at 12:37 PM
laurenbeukes.com
You guys! The Genre for Trans Rights 2 auction raised £10 840 for our UK & SA charities, GenderedIntelligence.co.uk 🇬🇧 and GenderDynamiX.org.za 🇿🇦. Thank you SO DAMN MUCH to everyone who donated amazing things and everyone who bought them. The total across both auctions is over £30k! 🏳️‍⚧️💙
Screengrab from Genre for Trans Rights Auction 2 admin page. Text reads Start: 02 May 2025, 11.45PM BST. End: 07 June 2025, 01.00AM BST. RAISED: £10840.69 Black sci-fi-ish text reads: Genre Creators for Trans Rights in the UK & SA over a trans flag. Screengrab from Genre for Trans Rights Auction 1 admin page. Text reads Start: 21 April 11.45 AM BST. End: 02 May 2025 At Midnight BST. RAISED: £20619.73
June 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Saving the best for last: Get a character named for you in new works by @patricknessbooks.bsky.social @clacksee.bsky.social @julietemckenna.bsky.social @jamesmoran.com @wiswell.bsky.social @richardkadrey.bsky.social and @maryrobinettekowal.com www.32auctions.com/organization...
screengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisation screengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisation screengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisation screengrab from https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181943?t=category&v=Tuckerisation
June 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Tickets to live RPG events from Curious Pastimes, Modern Mythic LARP & Profund Decisions www.32auctions.com/organization..., Starburst albums and subscription www.32auctions.com/organization..., an Eastercon glass www.32auctions.com/organization... (who helped make this auction possible)
June 6, 2025 at 2:06 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Decorative things: including a framed Tiptree donated by Geoff Ryman, a signed hand-written version of @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social's "Jesus at the Gay Bar", maps, an art nouveau dwarf, custom chibi, embroidered flora, and a hand-turned wooden pyrograph fountain pen. www.32auctions.com/organization...
Hand embroidered flower Listing for Jackie Ducksworth's Night Warrior print, featuring a blue and grey and black warrior on horseback, and a signed & handwritten poem, "Jesus at the Gay Bar" by poet Jay Hulme.
June 6, 2025 at 1:54 PM
laurenbeukes.com
Also many hand-crafted things, from folk horror stickers by @hackashic.bsky.social to a Gideon the 9th hat, a trans butterfly, linocut patches, chibi original art, custom dice, a whole crocheted catalogue of toys, scarves, bespoke beasts by @ngjeannette.bsky.social www.32auctions.com/organization...
screengrab of hand-crafted items from Genre for Trans charity auction including octopi, an axolotl, dinosaur puzzle toys, custom dice, hand-knitted socks, a dragon toddler hooded blanket and folk horror stickers A collection of folk horror stickers by Hackashic art, including a fish-headed person prancing, a devil who looks like he swallowed a ghost pepper, a weird bat with wrap around wings, a startled hare with a saddle, a dancing owl-headed figure, a seed pod with shapely dangling legs, a bird and a ram's head. Gideon the Ninth crocheted hat Award-winning Author and crafty crochet-er, Jeannette Ng, with dark hair, middle parting, black glasses, giving a cute side eye, wearing a silky mustard yellow shirt, with a bespoke crocheted beasts resting atop their head - a pink and purple whale with winged fins. Bakground has a collection of books, interesting paintings.
June 6, 2025 at 1:42 PM
laurenbeukes.com
SO many signed books! bit.ly/genrefortrans Tagging ppl I know @joe-hill.bsky.social, @starkholborn.bsky.social @older.bsky.social @drkatedevlin.bsky.social @kashinggiwa.bsky.social @nnedi.bsky.social @rebeccafraimow.bsky.social @karisperring.bsky.social @ianthegreen.bsky.social @cjtudor.bsky.social
June 6, 2025 at 1:29 PM