Know Your Power: A Guest Post by Ibi Zoboi
Acclaimed author of American Street, Nigeria Jones, Pride and more, Ibi Zoboi has written some of our favorite YA novels — and now we get to obsess over a brand-new one. Read on for Ibi’s exclusive essay on genre, experimentation and writing her new novel, (S)Kin.
Hardcover $19.99
(S)Kin
(S)Kin
By Ibi Zoboi
In Stock Online
Hardcover $19.99
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut—a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore—about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for.
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut—a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore—about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for.
During Beyoncè’s acceptance speech for winning Best Country Album at the 2025 Grammy’s, she said, “I think sometimes ‘genre’ is a code word to keep us in our place as artists.” Beyoncé was speaking directly to me and all other artists who experiment with different forms of expression.
I genre-hop. I’ve written books for different age groups. I’ve tackled immigration, gentrification, and criminal justice. Now, I’ve written a contemporary novel-in-verse fantasy based on Caribbean folklore. While this is a major shift from my previous books, my characters are still grappling with weighty social issues. Immigration, coming-of-age, colorism, and classism all play a role in (S)Kin.
I often feel like I am saying the same things in different formats. With each new book, I’m stepping outside the many boxes placed around me. While I’ve written about immigration in American Street which was infused with Haitian Vodou mythology, I’m entering another box to tell a similar story. Caribbean mythology and folklore are full of gods, creatures, and stories that can serve as a larger metaphor for coming-of-age and immigrant narratives.
In American Street, Papa Legba is the keeper of the crossroads and he’s a metaphor for the choices we must make to assimilate while preserving our own cultures. In (S)Kin, I’m using the story of the soucouyant—a shape-shifting witch who sheds her skin at night to feed on the souls of those who have wronged her—to grapple with the same question.
Fifteen year-old Marisol and seventeen year-old Genevieve both want a deeper understanding of who they are and what they’ve inherited from their mother. Marisol wants to shed a layer of her magical identity to live out the American dream. While Genevieve knows that if she could peel away at what’s brewing beneath the surface of her skin, she will feel more whole and complete. Both girls are two sides of the proverbial coin. The story is told from each of their perspectives to offer a glimpse of what it means to know your power versus having your power kept from you.
(S)Kin is told in free verse. The Caribbean dialect, whether it’s in English or French, is ripe with metaphors, wordplay, and lyrical language. In order to convey this, I played with word placement, line breaks, rhythm, and rhyme to call back the oral tradition, which was how Caribbean folklore and mythology was passed down. Because of this, names change over time or depending on place. For instance, the soucouyant is found in Trinidad and Tobago. But she is called a lougarou in Haiti, and Old Hag in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean. Overall, there a different names to describe a shape-shifting witch. These stories were not written down at first. So the spelling and pronunciations also vary. Poetry allowed me to be more creative in how I tell this story and infuse the folklore into a contemporary setting.
