In Conversation with Kit De Waal

Join us at Leamington Library where we'll be in conversation with Kit De Waal about her books and writing, with a focus on My Name is Leon, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. It is now on the GCSE curriculum for schools, making this the perfect event for anyone studying this text at school as well as for anyone taking part in Book Bingo, as September's category is 'A book that has been shortlisted for a prize'.

My Name is Leon

A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And a family where you'd least expect to find one.

Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since Jake is white and Leon is not.

As Leon struggles to cope with his anger, certain things can still make him smile - like Curly Wurlys, riding his bike fast downhill, burying his hands deep in the soil, hanging out with Tufty (who reminds him of his dad), and stealing enough coins so that one day he can rescue Jake and his mum.

Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a heart-breaking story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the fierce bond between siblings. And how - just when we least expect it - we manage to find our way home.

About the author

Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC. It is now on the GCSE curriculum for schools.

Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women's Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. A collection of short stories, Supporting Cast was published in 2020. An anthology of working-class memoir, Common People was crowdfunded and edited by Kit in 2019. Her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in August 2022.

Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions and the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and has written for theatre and television. She was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019 and is patron of Prisoners Abroad, The Bridport Prize and Writing West Midlands. She is also an ambassador for Wellbeing in the Arts and the Listening Books, on the Advisory Board of Dead Ink Books and a trustee of The Reading Agency.

Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at Leicester University.

Her new novel The Best of Everything is being released in April 2025.

Refreshments provided. There will be copies of Kit's books for sale at the event, courtesy of Warwick Books.

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