Forna was born in Bellshill, Scotland in 1964 to a Sierra Leonian father, Mohamed Forna, and a Scottish mother, Maureen Christison. When Forna was six months old the family travelled to Sierre Leone where Mohamed Forna worked as a physician. He later became involved in politics and entered government, only to resign citing a growth in political violence and corruption. Between 1970-3 he was imprisoned and declared an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience. Mohamed Forna was hanged on charges of treason in 1975. The events of Forna’s childhood and her investigation into the conspiracy surrounding her father’s death are the subject of the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water.

Forna studied law at University College London and was a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.

Between 1989 and 1999 Forna worked for the BBC working both in radio and television as a reporter and documentary maker in the spheres of arts and politics. She is also known for her Africa documentaries: Through African Eyes (1995), Africa Unmasked (2002) and The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (2009).

Aminatta Forna is married to the furniture designer Simon Westcott and lives in South East London.

Forna’s work, both fiction and non-fiction, is typically concerned with the prelude and aftermath to war, memory and the conflict between private narratives and official histories. In her fiction she employs multiple voices and shifting timelines.

The Devil that Danced on the Water, her first book, received wide critical acclaim across the UK and the USA. It was broadcast on BBC Radio and went on to become runner-up for the UK’s highly prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for non-Fiction.

Ancestor Stones, her second book and first novel, won the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for debut ficton in the US, the Liberaturpreis in Germany and was nominated for the International IMPAC Award. The Washington Post named Ancestor Stones one of the most important books of 2006. In 2007 Forna was named by Vanity Fair magazine as one of Africa’s best new writers.

The Memory of Love, her second novel, was published in April 2010 and returns to Forna’s themes of war and memory. The Memory of Love was selected as one of The Sunday Times' top fiction books for summer in June 2010. The Financial Times selected The Memory of Love as one of the best books of 2010.