Noughts & Crosses is the notable work most closely associated with Malorie Blackman, a British novelist, children's writer, science fiction writer, and screenwriter who has worked in English throughout her career. The novel stands as the work the FACTS list identifies as central to her output, and it is the title by which her name is most frequently anchored in discussions of her writing.

Blackman was born on 8 February 1962 in Clapham and is a citizen of the United Kingdom. She received her education at the City Literary Institute and at the University of Greenwich. Her career has extended across children's fiction, science fiction, and screenwriting, with her novels forming a substantial part of that body of work.

Her contributions to literature brought her a number of formal recognitions. She served as Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015, a position she held for two years in the United Kingdom. She was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, two honours that mark distinct forms of acknowledgement for her work as a writer.

In 2022, Blackman received the PEN Pinter Prize, adding a further award to those she had accumulated over the course of her career. That prize joins the OBE, the Royal Society of Literature fellowship, and the Children's Laureateship as concrete markers of the recognition her writing has received. The 2022 PEN Pinter Prize represents the most recent of these named acknowledgements on record.