I was really conscious of this as I was writing, I would never want to do something that would leave people traumatised. There’s been quite a bit of talk recently about the exploitation of Black trauma in media – was this something you were mindful of when you were writing the story? Speaking of darkness, Chiamaka and Devon go through a lot. I didn’t want it to be too dark because we’ve had enough darkness – I wanted it to be realistic and also to be hopeful, that was my priority in the end. ![]() I’m really bad at knowing how to end stories, especially when it comes to stories set in the real world, and not fantasy – life is so continuous so it’s hard to make endings feel satisfying and realistic, so I had to really think about the ending constantly. Did you have all the twists and turns planned out before you started writing? I learned so much from reading Malcolm X’s autobiography, and I wanted to create something that was fun and fictional that people would enjoy, but could also learn from. I wanted to include the history of racism in America and some parts of the history of racism in Britain as a subtle way of teaching people, specifically Black kids, about the history of why things are the way they are. ![]() I tried to make the setting as neutral as possible so that the story could still ring true in any place where Black people are disenfranchised and minoritised. When I started writing the book, I wanted it to be something that could apply to any place in the Global North, even though every culture has its own quirks. How did you go about shaping the setting and the world that Chiamaka and Devon live in? The location of the Niveus Academy seems quite ambiguous – some parts of it feel American, and some feel British. So it was really important for me to represent that. Especially if you’re a person of colour and you’ve only really seen white queer people in the media. I saw that with a lot of my friends – they didn’t realise they were queer because they were brought up believing that it couldn’t exist for them. When you’re in such a heteronormative society, so many people don’t even realise that they are queer until much later, because they’ve been conditioned to believe that any fondness they may have for someone of the same gender is just friendship. With Chiamaka, I wanted it to be the case that she hadn’t really let herself think about what she truly wanted. I really wanted to make sure a lot of people felt represented and it wasn’t just one story, because coming out and self-discovery can look different for different people. I grew up in a very queer environment, and I've seen so many people from different backgrounds having different experiences. From the beginning of the book I wanted it to be about queer Black kids, so it was ingrained. Something I’ve noticed is that queerness will be arbitrarily added as a point to sell a book or TV show, and isn’t actually for a queer audience. Queerness also runs throughout the story – how did you approach telling Chiamaka and Devon’s respective journeys authentically? Chiamaka’s also a child of immigrants, so I wanted to show that this can bring about pressures to live up to parental expectations, which can be isolating. When you’re a teenager, it’s really difficult to fully accept yourself when you’re trying to fit in, or you have other people telling you that something about yourself is wrong. ![]() Self-acceptance and loneliness are also big themes. The biggest themes are dreams and hopes – Chiamaka and Devon are just trying to make it in a world that is built to be against them, and make it in a system that is basically built to stop them from succeeding. What would you say the story's biggest themes are? We have a similar background in terms of coming from working-class families, having a lot of responsibility, and feeling like you almost have to be a parent figure in your own home – so I really relate to him on a socio-economic level. I relate to them both in a lot of different ways, but I think I relate to Devon more. Each chapter alternates between both character’s points of view – which one did you relate to the most?
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