I had a very peripatetic childhood, so I bounced around. Lived in Ethiopia until I was, like, three or four and then lived between Ireland and London.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I wrote my first book without being to Ethiopia since I was two years old.
I had quite a scattered childhood. I was Irish in London, because I had my secondary school education there. I never really fitted anywhere. I didn't feel it was a negative thing, and I was never made to feel different - I just knew I was.
I'm a member of the African diaspora: my parents left the Caribbean and came to London for a better life.
I don't have memories of Ethiopia as a child. I didn't learn about Ethiopian culture until after I moved to New York and started meeting people from the Ethiopian community.
I grew up in northwest London on a council estate. My parents are Irish immigrants who came over here when they were very young and worked in menial jobs all their lives, and I'm one of many siblings.
I grew up in Sudan and Kenya, and lived in both the rural and urban centers of both countries throughout my life.
My parents never referenced Ethiopia that much, largely because of the circumstances under which we left. We left during a time of political upheaval, and there was a lot of loss that came with that, so my parents were reluctant to talk about those things. So I had, by and large, an American childhood.
I always traveled. I left Cameroon when I was 11 years old. I lived in the USA, in Switzerland.
I grew up in a little village in the west of Ireland.
I was one of the many kids in Northern Ireland who grew up in the countryside and had an idyllic childhood well away from the Troubles.