Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, on writing her international phenomenon

Angie Thomas. Photo / Supplied

If you have teens in your life and you haven't heard Angie Thomas's name, you haven't been paying attention. Her debut novel, The Hate U Give, is an international phenomenon: racking up 205 weeks on the New York Times Young Adult bestseller list, spawning a movie starring Amandla Stenberg (and Aotearoa's own K. Apa), a follow-up novel set in the same universe (On the Come Up), and now, a prequel to The Hate U Give, Concrete Rose.

Concrete Rose is set 17 years before The Hate U Give and focuses on the life of Maverick Carter — later to be known as Big Mav, the father of The Hate U Give's protagonist, Starr. People had long been asking about Mav's backstory, so Thomas looked hard at who this formidable character must have been when he was a teen himself.

"In The Hate U Give, we see him as this very protective father," she says. "But at 17, protection might mean, 'If I have to do what I have to do in these streets in order to take care of my family, I'm going to do that and I'm not going to worry about the consequences.'

"He's a kid who's curious about certain things: he likes literature, he likes to learn about people like Malcolm X. He hasn't fully absorbed it yet but he's starting to peek into that. But at 17, he's still a knuckle-headed teenager whose life is turned upside down by fatherhood."

Authenticity to Maverick's voice was a driving force for Thomas from the get-go and part of that meant writing both dialogue and narration with the influence of AAVE (African American Vernacular English). "I had to put aside my doubt that people wouldn't get it – because the fact is that if people don't understand something, they will find it out. And context makes such a huge difference, so I had to trust my readers a bit more. As an author, I think that's something a lot of us have to remind ourselves of constantly."

Thomas was only a pre-teen in the late 90s setting that she captured so evocatively. Hip-hop helped her wrap her head around the era. "Hip-hop is definitely a historical archive. If you want to know what kind of slang young people were using, what kind of cars people were driving, what kind of clothes people were wearing, you'll find that all out."

Starr's story in The Hate U Give is very of-the-now, with the Black Lives Matter movement at its core. Maverick is from a different era — and in some ways, his story is a more universally familiar one: a young BIPOC person dealing with gang life and teen pregnancy isn't just a tale of America. "I thought about the fact that there are so many young people who will be able to relate to him, from different walks of life. Young people who don't look like him will understand the pressure of being 17 and a parent all of a sudden.

"I'm thankful that his story will be a little more accessible or relatable for so many young people because, if nothing else, that will help them look at the real-life Mavericks in a different way. I think that books play a huge role in building empathy and one way to build empathy is to build connection."

The impact that The Hate U Give has had on young people isn't lost on Thomas. "Just the other week, the new First Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, was saying during an interview that she had just got a copy of The Hate U Give. I never would have expected something like that. It's shown me — and it's also shown publishing — that young people crave these stories. Young people love reading about characters that they can see themselves in, or characters that they don't see themselves in, but whose lives they would love a window into.

"And it's shown me the power of literature. I've had so many young activists say that they got into activism because of that book, or especially young people saying that they got the courage to speak out about something because of it. It's an honour to know that."

Angie Thomas will be appearing via live video link at the Auckland Writers Festival this May.