'I was heading for a breakdown, then books saved my life'

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Kit de Waal said reading "saved my life" after a turbulent youth left her close to a serious breakdown

ByNina Das Gupta, BBC Upload and Allen Cook, West Midlands

Published55 minutes ago

International bestselling author Kit de Waal has told the BBC how a chance conversation changed her life after she left home at 16, struggled with drugs and found herself on the brink of a serious mental breakdown.

The Birmingham-born writer said she was "a couple of months away from a very serious breakdown" before a solicitor's reading recommendation changed the course of her life.

Speaking to BBC Upload, she said: "I found the world of reading, the world of imagination.

"I can honestly say it saved my life."

Born in Birmingham to an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, de Waal 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.

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The My Name Is Leon author said books opened up "the world of imagination" and inspired her writing career

The family lived on the edge of a predominantly middle-class area, but de Waal 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."

Yet she also remembers acts of kindness.

After her family moved into a largely white neighbourhood, one neighbour invited the children into their home to see their pet tortoise.

"I learnt from that the power of kindness and the profound effect it has when other people aren't being kind."

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The award-winning author says experiences of poverty, racism and feeling like an outsider shaped her writing

When she was six, her mother became a Jehovah's Witness.

De Waal left home at 16 after deciding she no longer wanted to follow the faith.

The years that followed were difficult.

"I was wild," she said. "I took a lot of drugs, drank a lot, did everything you can imagine."

The deaths of friends from heroin overdoses forced her to confront where her life was heading.

By the age of 21, she said her mental health had deteriorated badly.

"I was really very, very unwell.

"I would say a couple of months away from a very serious breakdown."

After returning home and finding work with the Crown Prosecution Service, an off-hand comment from a solicitor would prove life-changing.

Seeing her yawn during a meeting, he suggested reading to help with her insomnia.

At the time, de Waal said she disliked books and had never developed a reading habit.

The solicitor gave her a list of 10 novels, including War and Peace and Madame Bovary.

She bought them all.

"I've never cured the insomnia," she said.

"But I have found a world."

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Sir Lenny Henry helped bring Kit de Waal's bestselling novel My Name Is Leon to the screen after first narrating its audiobook

Reading became a lifelong passion and eventually inspired her to start writing herself.

Despite believing she could write a novel in a matter of months, de Waal said it took more than a decade of rejection and learning the 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.

The novel became an international bestseller and was later adapted by the BBC after Sir Lenny Henry, who narrated the audiobook, became determined to bring the story to the screen.

It is now studied in schools.

Yet de Waal said the most important lesson from her success was a simple one.

"If there's a lesson, it's write the thing you really care about."

Now one of Britain's best-known authors, she remains a passionate advocate for reading in all its forms, including audiobooks.

Despite an international career, she still credits reading with changing the direction of her life.

"I found the world of reading," she said.

"It saved my life."