ruby yayra goka

 Books

Plain Yellow

2014 Burt Award Winner

When the Shackles Fall

2012 Burt Award Winner

The Step-monster

• 2015 Burt Award Winner

• Honour Book: 2017 Burt Award for African Literature (All Star Edition) 

Perfectly Imperfect

2013 Burt Award Winner

The Mystery of the Haunted House

2010 Burt Award Winner

To Kiss a Girl

Honour Book: 2018 Burt Award for African Literature 

Those Who Wait

2012 Burt Award Honourable Mention

A Gift for Fafa

Mama's Amazing Cover Cloth

  bio

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Ruby Yayra Goka has always loved stories and storytelling.

For a long time, the only person who ‘benefitted’ from her great love of writing and storytelling, was her younger brother, Eli. Every day after school, he was made to watch a performance of a story Ruby made up. The cast of characters were usually her dolls, stuffed animals and her cat, Katie.

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Thankfully for Eli, as Ruby got older she preferred reading to putting up productions. This preference often led to conflict with her older sister, Dela, because Ruby would hoard Dela's literature books when Dela needed them to study. This love of reading and telling stories was what led her into writing many years later.

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Her first published book for young adults, The Mystery of the Haunted House, won third prize in the Burt Award for African Literature competition in 2010. The Burt Award for African Literature is an award which recognizes excellence in African writing for young adults. A year later she published two more books, Disfigured and In the Middle of Nowhere.

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Her books for young adults, The Lost Royal Treasure, When the Shackles Fall, Perfectly Imperfect, Plain Yellow and The Step-monster, have all won awards in the same competition from the year 2011 to 2015. Those Who Wait was given an honourable mention in the same competition in the year 2012.

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Her other books for children include A Gift for Fafa and Tani’s Wish. Tani’s Wish was written for the Ghana Cleft Foundation to create awareness about cleft lips and palates and to reduce the stigmatization associated with the condition.

Ruby believes that the more African children see themselves reflected in the pages of books they read, the more they will dream and know they can be anything they want to be.

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When she isn’t spending time with her two dogs and turtle, Ruby will be found either reading,  gardening or holding conversations with her ‘imaginary friends’.

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