Kit de Waal: how reading saved the Birmingham author's life

Birmingham-born author Kit de Waal has spoken about how reading turned her life around, after she left home at 16, struggled with drugs and found herself close to a serious breakdown.

The international bestselling writer, whose novel My Name Is Leon is set in 1980s Birmingham, told BBC Upload that a solicitor's suggestion that she read more changed the direction of her life.

Growing up in Moseley

Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, and grew up in Moseley at a time when mixed-race families were rare. "My father came over from the Caribbean in 1956 and my mother is an Irish immigrant," she said.

Her childhood was marked by poverty. "We were very, very poor. I was brought up in poverty, there's no other way about it," she said. Those experiences later became central to her writing.

"What I learnt from it was difference, what it's like to be an outsider, what it's like to be poor, hungry, lost, not fit in, the damage that poverty does, the damage that racism does to children."

"The world of imagination"

She left home at 16 and later lost friends to heroin overdoses. By 21, she said, she was "a couple of months away from a very serious breakdown".

After returning home and taking a job with the Crown Prosecution Service, a solicitor noticed her yawning in a meeting and suggested reading to help with her insomnia. He gave her a list of 10 novels, including War and Peace and Madame Bovary.

"I found the world of reading, the world of imagination," she said. She added: "I've never cured the insomnia."

From reader to writer

Reading became a lifelong passion and eventually led her to write. She thought she could write a novel in a few months, but it took more than a decade of rejection and learning her craft before she was published.

Her breakthrough came with My Name Is Leon, the story of a young boy in the care system growing up in 1980s Birmingham. It became an international bestseller and was adapted by the BBC after Sir Lenny Henry, who narrated the audiobook, set out to bring it to the screen.

Her advice to aspiring writers is simple: "If there's a lesson, it's write the thing you really care about."

A champion of reading

Now one of Britain's best-known authors, de Waal remains a passionate advocate for reading in all its forms, including audiobooks. Her story is a reminder of what libraries, and a single good recommendation, can do, and Birmingham's own libraries, from the Library of Birmingham to local branches, offer anyone the chance to find a book that changes their life.