Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest publisher as well as the first black female book publisher in the UK"Margaret Busby" , African Writing Online, October/November 2007.Jazzmine Breary, "Let's not forget" , in Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Market Place, Spread the Word, April 2013, p. 30. when she and Clive Allison (1944–2011) co-foundedMargaret Busby, "Clive Allison obituary" , The Guardian, 3 August 2011. the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby (A & B) in the 1960s."Black History Month in Britain: Great women you should know about" , Newsround, BBC, 1 October 2018. She edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992), and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa.Margaret Busby, "From Ayòbámi Adébáyò to Zadie Smith: meet the New Daughters of Africa", The Guardian, 9 March 2019. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature.Natasha Onwuemezi, "Busby to compile anthology of African women writers" , The Bookseller, 15 December 2017. In 2020, she was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons"."100 Great Black Britons" , 2020. In 2021, she was honoured with the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award."This Is My Story: Margaret Busby" , The Hub, London Book Fair, 26 October 2021. In 2023, Busby was named as president of English PEN.
Education and early years Margaret Yvonne Busby was born in 1944,"Order of the British Empire | Dr. Margaret Yvonne Busby" , The London Gazette, 31 December 2005, SUPPLEMENT No. 1, p. N9. in Accra, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). Her parents were Dr George Busby and Mrs Sarah Busby (née Christian), who both had family links to the Caribbean, particularly to Trinidad, Barbados and Dominica. Her Barbados-born father, Dr Busby (1899–1980)Vincent 'Boo' Nurse, "Barbadian Doctor/Philanthropist honoured in London" , Barbados Today, 12 March 2020. was a lifelong friend of Kwame Nkrumah's mentor George PadmoreCameron Duodu, "Edward Wilmot Blyden, grandfather of African liberation" , Pambazuka News, Issue 538, 6 July 2011. and attended school in Trinidad with C. L. R. James at Queen's Royal College, winning the Island Scholarship. This, in turn, enabled him to travel to Britain to study medicine, in 1919.Shereen Ali, "Sharing our Voices", Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, 29 April 2015. . After initial studies at Edinburgh University, George Busby transferred to University College, Dublin, to complete his medical qualifications, and then practised as a doctor in Walthamstow, London (where there is a blue plaque in his honour),"Dr George Busby Plaque Unveiling" (video), 14 April 2020. before relocating to settle in the Gold Coast in 1929.Tony Martin, The Progress of the African Race Since Emancipation and Prospects for the Future , Port-of-Spain: Emancipation Support Committee/Dover, MA: The Majority Press, 1998, pp. 8–9."Blue Plaque Honouring Dr George Alfred Busby father of Margaret Busby to be Unveiled Mar 9" , Alt A Review, March 2020. Through her maternal line, she is a cousin of BBC newscaster Moira Stuart.The Literator, "Cover Stories: Sue Freestone; Margaret Busby; Zadie Smith", The Independent, 16 June 2006.Thomson Fontaine, "George James Christian: Pioneer in Africa" , TheDominican.net, Volume No. 1, Issue No. 32, 27 November 2002.Gary Crosby, "RIP Ken Gordon (1927–2013)", garycrosbybass.com, 9 November 2013. . Her grandfather was Dominica-born George James Christian (1869–1940),Stephen Owoahene Acheampong, "Book Review: Returned Exile: A Biography of George James Christian of Dominica and the Gold Coast, 1869-1940" , Contemporary Journal of African Studies 4(2):179, June 2017. a delegate at the First Pan-African Conference, in London, in 1900,Lester Lewis, "Pan Africans On The Rise Again" , RaceandHistory.com, 23 January 2001.Marika Sherwood, Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora , Routledge, 2011, p. 336, note 13. who migrated to the Gold Coast in 1902.Dr Glenville Ashby, "A Defining Moment In Black History" , The Gleaner, 30 April 2017.
Her parents sent their three children to be educated in England, when Busby was five. She and her sister first attended a school in the Lake District, followed by Charters Towers School, an international girls' boarding-school in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex. After passing her O-levels there, aged 14, Busby left school at 15, went back to Ghana and took her A-levels at 16,Satch Hoyt, "Margaret Busby: What it takes to be the first Black Woman Publisher in the UK – Part 1" , Afro-Sonic Mapping, 25 June 1919. then spent a year at a college in Cambridge so as not to begin university too young. From the age of 17, she studied English at Bedford College, London University,Alison Donnell, "Busby, Margaret" , Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture, Routledge, 2002. where she edited her college literary magazine, as well as publishing her own poetry. She graduated with a BA Honours degree, at the age of 20."London's most remarkable Publishing Firm" , Ebony, March 1971, pp. 43–50. She was married to British jazz musician and educator, Lionel Grigson (1942–1994).
Publishing career While still at university, she met her future business partner, Clive Allison, at a party in Bayswater Road, and they decided to start a publishing company.Katie Kingshill, "Clive Allison: Publisher whose eclectic imprint was in the vanguard of independent houses", The Independent, 7 September 2011. After graduating, Busby briefly worked at the Cresset Press – part of the Barrie Group – while setting up Allison and Busby (A & B), whose first books were published in 1967, making her the then youngest publisher as well as the first African woman book publisher in the UK – an achievement she has assessed by saying: "[I]t is easy enough to be the first, we can each try something and be the first woman or the first African woman to do X, Y or Z. But, if it's something worthwhile you don't want to be the only. ...I hope that I can, in any way, inspire someone to do what I have done but learn from my mistakes and do better than I have done."Ellen Mitchell and Sophie Kulik, "Q&A: Margaret Busby on 'New Daughters of Africa'" , Africa In Words, 29 June 2019.
She was Allison & Busby's Editorial Director for 20 years,"Margaret Busby – Prize Ambassador" , SI Leeds Literary Prize. publishing many notable authors including Sam Greenlee (author of The Spook Who Sat by the Door, the first novel published by A & B, in 1969),Margaret Busby, "Sam Greenlee obituary" , The Guardian, 2 June 2014.Allison & Busby page at George Padmore Institute website. C. L. R. James,Emma Bartholomew, "CLR James' publisher Margaret Busby: 'My 50 years working with books' ", Hackney Gazette, 25 January 2017. Buchi Emecheta,Ezeigbo, Akachi, "Celebrating Buchi Emecheta in London a year after" , The Guardian (Nigeria), 11 February 2018.Cobbinah, Angela, "How African writer gave women and girls a voice" , Camden New Journal, 16 February 2018. Chester Himes, George Lamming, Roy Heath, Ishmael Reed, John Edgar Wideman, Nuruddin Farah, Rosa Guy, Val Wilmer, Colin MacInnes, H. Rap Brown, Julius Lester, Geoffrey Grigson, Edward Blishen, Dermot Healy, Adrian Mitchell, Matthew Sweeney, Jill Murphy, Christine Qunta, Michael Horovitz, Alexandra Kollontai, Gordon Williams, Alan Burns, Carlos Moore, Michèle Roberts, Molefe Pheto, Arthur Maimane, Maurice Nyagumbo, Giles Gordon, Claire Rayner, Clive Sinclair, Mineke Schipper, Chris Searle, Richard Stark, James Ellroy, Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Thomson Davis, B. Traven, Alexis Lykiard, Tom Mallin, Jack Trevor Story, Michael Moorcock, Mervyn Peake, John Clute, Julian Savarin, Ralph de Boissière, Andrew Salkey, Harriet E. Wilson, and Miyamoto Musashi.
Busby was subsequently editorial director of Earthscan (publishing titles by Han Suyin, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, René Dumont, Carolina Maria de Jesus, and others), before pursuing a freelance career as an editor, writer, and critic, from the early 1990s.Chris Fite-Wassilak, "An Artist in Time: Margaret Busby". , Baring Foundation, 17 November 2020.
Writing, editing and broadcasting As a journalist, she has written for The Guardian (mainly book reviews"Do the Harlem shuffle – Margaret Busby explores the tangled life and work of Chester Himes in James Sallis' biography", The Guardian, 21 October 2000.I am headed for higher ground' – Reading the final instalment of Maya Angelou's memoir is painful but moving, says Margaret Busby" , The Guardian, 15 June 2002."Marvels of the holy hour: Margaret Busby is fascinated by Wole Soyinka's witty, dramatic account of his life, You Must Set Forth at Dawn" , The Guardian, 26 May 2007.Margaret Busby, "Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City by Jonny Steinberg – review" , The Guardian, 12 March 2011. or obituaries of artists and activists including Jessica Huntley, Buzz Johnson, Jayne Cortez, Jan Carew, Rosa Guy, Gwendolyn Brooks, June Jordan, Toni Cade Bambara, Florynce Kennedy, Barry Reckord, Frank Crichlow, Connie Mark, Glenn Thompson, August Wilson, Pearl Connor-Mogotsi, Geraldine Connor, Binyavanga Wainaina, bell hooks and Biyi Bandele),Margaret Busby profile at The Guardian. The Observer,Margaret Busby, "The Last Holiday: A Memoir by Gil Scott-Heron – review" , The Observer, 5 February 2012. The Independent,Margaret Busby , The Independent. The Sunday Times,Margaret Busby, "Books: Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge" (review), The Sunday Times, 25 September 2016. the New Statesman,Margaret Busby, "Homing instinct" (review of Black Gold of the Sun: searching for home in England and Africa by Ekow Eshun), New Statesman, 30 May 2005. and elsewhere, for both the general press and specialist journals.Margaret Busby, "We are the world: Trumpeting our words" , Griffith Review, 59: Commonwealth Now, January 2018.Margaret Busby at Journalisted. .
Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century (2026) In March 2026, Hamish Hamilton published a collection of Busby's collected writings, titled Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century.Part of the Story by Margaret Busby. Penguin Books.Blessing Uwisike, "Margaret Busby's Part of the Story Is the Book African Literature Has Been Waiting For | Released Today", Brittle Paper, 26 March 2026.
Daughters of Africa (1992) and New Daughters of Africa (2019)
Busby compiled Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present (London: Cape, 1992),Tew, Philip, Emily Horton, Leigh Wilson (eds), The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction. , A&C Black, 2014, p. 108."Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby". , Kinna Reads, 24 September 2010. described by Black Enterprise as "a landmark", which includes contributions in a range of genres by more than 200 women. Widely reviewed on publication, it is now characterised as containing work by "the matriarchs of African literature. They pioneered 'African' writing, in which they were not simply writing stories about their families, communities and countries, but they were also writing themselves into the African literary history and African historiography. They claimed space for women storytellers in the written form, and in some sense reclaimed the woman's role as the creator and carrier of many African societies' narratives, considering that the traditional storytelling session was a women's domain."