Lesley Lokko (Ghana/Scotland) is an architectural academic, educator and best-selling novelist. She is the founder and director of the African Futures Institute, established in Accra, Ghana, in 2020 as a postgraduate school of architecture, research centre and public events platform. In 2015 she founded the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She has taught in the UK, in the US, Europe, Australia and Africa. She is the recipient of a number of awards for contributions to architectural education, among them: the RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Education 2020; the AR Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contributions to Architecture 2021.