Margaret Busby Biography
Margaret Busby is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. Busby was Britain’s youngest and first black woman book publisher when in the 1960s she co-founded with Clive Allison (1944–2011) the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby (A & B).
Margaret Busby Early Life
She was born in 1944 in Accra, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), to Dr. George Busby and Mrs. Sarah Busby (née Christian), who both had family links to the Caribbean, particularly to Trinidad, Barbados, and Dominica. She was a lifelong friend of Kwame Nkrumah’s mentor George Padmore and attended school with C. L. R. James at Queen’s Royal College, winning the Island Scholarship and becoming a doctor who eventually settled in the Gold Coast.
Margaret Busby Education
In her maternal line, she is a cousin of BBC newscaster Moira Stuart and her grandfather was George James Christian, a delegate at the First Pan-African Conference in London in 1900, who migrated to the Gold Coast in 1902. Busby edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992) and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa. Busby is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature.
Upon leaving school in Sussex at 15, Margaret Busby read English at Bedford College, London University, where she edited her college literary magazine as well as publishing her own poetry and graduated with a BA Honours degree at the age of 20. Busby was married to British jazz musician and educator Lionel Grigson (1942–1994).
Margaret Busby Career
Writing, Editing, and Broadcasting
Being a journalist, she has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, The Sunday Times, the New Statesman and elsewhere, for both the general press and specialist journals. 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), described as “a landmark” by Black Enterprise.
She edited an updated volume New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent (Myriad, 2019), featuring some 200 writers from across the African diaspora. The Irish Times review noted: “Sometimes you need an anthology to remind you of the variety, strength, and nuance of writing among a certain region or group of people.
The New Daughters of Africa is indispensable because African voices have been silenced or diminished throughout history, and women’s voices even more so.” Connected with the new anthology, the “Margaret Busby New Daughters of Africa Award” was announced by the publisher, in partnership with SOAS, University of London, that will benefit an African woman student.
The year 2014 she co-authored with Ishmahil Blagrove Carnival: A Photographic and Testimonial History of the Notting Hill Carnival. Among other books for which she has written introductions or forewords are the Penguin Modern Classics edition of A Question of Power by Bessie Head, Emerging Perspectives on Buchi Emecheta (ed. Marie Umeh, 1996) and Beyond Words: South African Poetics (with Keorapetse Kgositsile, Don Mattera, Lebo Mashile and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, 2009).
She has regularly worked for radio and television since the late 1960s, when she presented the magazine program London Line for the Central Office of Information, as well as Break For Women on the BBC African Service and later Talking Africa on Spectrum Radio, in addition to appearing on a range of programs including Kaleidoscope, Front Row, Open Book, Woman’s Hour, and Democracy Now! (USA).
Her abridgements and dramatizations for BBC Radio include works by C. L. R. James, Jean Rhys, Wole Soyinka, Timothy Mo, Sam Selvon, Walter Mosley, Henry Louis Gates, Lawrence Scott, and Simi Bedford. Her play based on C. L. R. James’s novel Minty Alley was the first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, winning a Commission for Racial Equality “Race in the Media Award” (RIMA) in 1999.
Margaret Busby Age
Busby was born on 11th October 1944 in Accra, Ghana. She is aged 74 years as of 2018.
Margaret Busby Body Measurements
- Height: Not Available.
- Weight: Not Available.
- Shoe Size: Not Available.
- Body Shape: Not Available.
- Hair Colour: Black.
Margaret Busby Net Worth
She has a net worth of 2 million US dollars.
Margaret Busby Publishing
When still at university she met her future business partner Clive Allison at a party and they decided to start a publishing company. He graduated, Busby briefly worked at the Cresset Press – part of the Barrie Group – while setting up Allison and Busby, whose first books were published in 1967.
She was Editorial Director for the next 20 years, publishing many significant authors including Sam Greenlee C. James, Buchi Emecheta, 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, Adrian Mitchell, Jill Murphy, Christine Qunta, Michael Horovitz, Carlos Moore, Michèle Roberts, Molefe Photo, Arthur Maimane, Hunter S. Thompson, Alexis Lykiard, Jack Trevor Story, Michael Moorcock, Ralph de Boissière, and Andrew Salkey. She was subsequently Editorial Director of Earthscan before pursuing a freelance career as an editor, writer, and critic.
Margaret Busby Awards and Recognition
- 1970: Society of Young Publishers Award.
- 1977: Featured in Mayotte Magnus exhibition Women, photographs of eminent British women, at National Portrait Gallery, reprised in 2018 as Illuminating Women.
- 1993: Pandora Award. from Women in Publishing.
- 1998: Honorary Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) International Region.
- 1999: Race in the Media Award for radio play Minty Alley.
- 1999: Ghanaian traditional honor as Nana Akua Ackon, Cape Coast.
- 2004: Open University Honorary Doctorate for Services to the Arts and Sciences.
- 2004: Featured in “A Great Day in London” photograph at British Library among 50 Black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to British literature.
- 2006: Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to Literature and to Publishing.
- 2011: Honorary Fellowship, Queen Mary, University of London.
- 2015: Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters, NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad.
- 2015: UK African Heritage High Achievers Recognition Award. from the House of Amau.
- 2015: Honorary Membership of PAWA (Pan African Writers Association) Award, Ghana.
- 2017: Elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
- 2017: Awarded the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature for lifelong achievement.
- 2018: Selected as one of the University of London’s 150 “Leading Women” to celebrate 150 years of women’s higher education in the UK.
- 2019: Inaugural Africa Writes Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal African Society
- 2019: Honorary doctorate from SOAS, University of London
Frequently Asked Questions About Margaret Busby
Who is Busby?
Margaret Busby is one of the Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. Busby was Britain’s youngest and first black woman book publisher when in the 1960s she co-founded with Clive Allison.
How old is Busby?
Busby was born on 11th October 1944 in Accra, Ghana. She is aged 74 years as of 2018.
How tall is Busby?
Information concerning Busby height is not known to the public.
Is Busby married?
Her Marital life is not known to the public.
How much is Busby worth?
She has not yet revealed her net worth. We will update this section when we get and verify information about the wealth and properties under her name.
How much does Busby make?
According to her reliable source, Busby’s annual salary is not available.
Where does Busby live?
Information not known.
Is Busby dead or alive?
Busby is alive and in good health. There have been no reports of her being sick or having any health-related issues.
Where is Busby now?
Not known.