S. I. Martin lives in South London where he works as a researcher and writer of Black history. He currently works with museums, archives and the education sector to bring diverse histories to a wider audience.
S. I. Martin was born in Bedford and has worked as a journalist for The Voice and Bulletin. He is the author of a novel, Incomparable World (1996), which tells the story of three black exiles living in 18th-century London; and a non-fiction title, Britain’s Slave Trade (1999), published to accompany a television series screened on Channel 4.
In 2007 his children’s novel, Jupiter Williams, was published. It tells the tale of a boy who lives in the African Academy in Clapham, London, in 1800.
He works as a children’s  storyteller, historian and presenter, founder of the series of narrative London walks entitled `500 Years of Black London`, hosting and narrating walks for university and television; he specialises in Black British history and literature.
He is much in demand and has held fascinating workshops across the U.K. which include; English Heritage, National Maritime Museum, Museum of London, Museum in Docklands, Imperial War Museum, Public Records Office, British Council Literature wing and the Horniman Museum.
Working with Schools
His work in schools has included using 17th, 18th and 19th Century materials as writing prompts for year 3 and 4 pupils. (The children were inspired to write wanted posters and letters to Africa, as if they were 18th Century children separated from their parents). The workshops cleverly link black history and literature. They inspire the pupils to write their own fiction taken from past evidence. His workshops are suitable for Key Stage 2 and 3 children.
bibliography
Incomparable World   Quartet, 1996
Britain’s Slave Trade   Channel 4 Books, 1999
Jupiter Williams   Hodder Children’s Books, 2007
Jupiter Williams – A novel for younger readers
Set in London 1800. Jupiter is young, black, living at the African Academy in Clapham with other boys from wealthy Sierra Leonean families. His life is a mixture of privilege and dispossession as he copes with the cruelty of his teachers, the rivalries and tensions among his schoolmates, a sense of duty towards his younger brother Robert and guilt over the death of another brother in Africa. Throughout, Jupiter strives to maintain his dignity, his Christian faith and pride in his roots.
But beyond the relative ease of Clapham lies another London, where poor black communities struggle for survival along the squalid reaches of the Thames. A world where Jupiter’s education and background mean nothing and skin colour alone determines fate. Into this world his younger brother Robert vanishes, and Jupiter is obliged to follow …
The sequel Jupiter Amidships is a sequel and will be published in 2009.