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

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.

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.

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.

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