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Life and healing
About Me — Luwa Adebanjo
I find it surprisingly hard to write about myself, to tell others about my life, even though I am a storyteller.
I am a writer, poet, actress and theatre-maker. All of those titles share a little bit about me, and they are all to do with telling a story. So even now, I sit here wondering why I struggle to tell my own story.
I could be stereotypical. I was born in the late 90s in Nigeria. My family moved to England when I was young, and I was thrown into a completely different culture. Shock doesn’t even begin to cover it. I was no longer the ‘loud one’, or the ‘bossy one’. I was the black one. To make matters worse, I didn’t even speak the language properly, and it couldn’t have been more obvious that I was an immigrant. I didn’t get the humour, the culture or the society for a while. I grew up incredibly conservative, in an Evangelical Christian home. I was anti-abortion, anti-gay rights and honestly, just anti-fun. I believed a woman’s role was in the kitchen and I couldn’t wait to have 10 kids with my husband. I even asked for a purity ring as a birthday present once. I didn’t go out much, I never snuck out, drank early or fraternised with boys. I loved writing and reading, creating my own worlds full of the excitement I lacked in my real life. I…
