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'Kit de Waal's best work yet'

​

READER REVIEW

'Poignant and uplifting'​

READER REVIEW

'A profoundly compassionate

novel of devastating power'

Bernardine Evaristo

'A wonderful novel,

bursting with life'

Cathy Rentzenbrink

'So deeply moving: sad

and beautiful and true'

Annie Macmanus

'Kit de Waal takes an ordinary

life and renders it extraordinary'

Monica Ali

‘I defy you not to cry while reading this’ 

Red Magazine

'Poignant and uplifting'

'Kit de Waal has an uncanny ability to create vivid characters with such empathy that I want to reach into the pages to hug them. I truly loved this book'

Liz Nugent

'Beautiful. De Waal has the power to astound, to lift and console, to make life with her sentences'

READER REVIEW

'Paulette is a superbly drawn character, as are those that orbit her world'

'A beautiful and important story about kindness that will break your heart, then make it sing'

Donal Ryan

READER REVIEW

'A reminder that there are more interesting loves than the ones usually celebrated in novels'

Clare Chambers

'A story that is at times gentle, surprising and full of forgiveness and redemption'

READER REVIEW

PRESS REVIEWS

‘A beautiful novel about kindness and found family’  

Good Housekeeping 

‘Full of warmth, this is a joyous story of love and what

family means to each of us’ 

Prima Magazine

‘The author of My Name is Leon knows how to tug at the heartstrings’. 

The I Paper

‘There’s emotional magic in this latest novel from the ever-compassionate de Waal’ 

The Daily Mail

RECENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Women's Prize for Fiction 2025

 

The judging panel is chaired by author Kit de Waal.

​She is joined by:

Novelist, journalist Diana Evans

Author, journalist and mental-health campaigner, Bryony Gordon

Magazine editor, Editor-in-Chief of Glamour UK, Deborah Joseph;

Musician and composer Amelia Warner.

​

The Women’s Prize for Fiction is the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world. 2025 celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys.

Pictured, L-R:
Bryony Gordon, Amelia Warner, Diana Evans, Kit de Waal, Deborah Joseph

LATEST
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on rebellion, redemption and making crisis count. Crisis What Crisis YouTube channel - RUN TIME 1:10 
The Green & The Black is about the changing face of modern Ireland, as told through multiple generations of one family
​Discussing the power of diverse voices with  Iole Dexter. â€‹
Kit is now represented by Peter Strauss at London-based literary
agency RCW.  Contact details are on the contact page and in the footer.
AQA YouTube Channel  - RUN TIME 6:64
EVENTS
MARCH 29
Manchester Central Library
MARCH 30
Literary festival appearance
APRIL 9
with Bernardine Evaristo
APRIL 14
The Heath bookshop
APRIL 25
Literary festival appearance
APRIL 27
Literary festival appearance
MAY 3-4
Literary festival appearance
MAY 8
Interview with Meg Sanders
MAY 9
Literary festival appearance
MAY 20
Waterstone's bookshop
MAY 24
Literary festival appearance
MAY 30
Literary festival appearance
INTERVIEWS & CONVERSATIONS
WATCH
Making Dad's Fruitcake with
Dean O'Loughlin. For Headline Books
LISTEN

Penguin Podcast, Kit de Waal with Katy Brand (32 min)

Literary Salon with Damian Barr (44 min)

How to Fail with Elizabeth Day (58 min)

READ

The Times Literary Supplement Twenty Questions 

The Aesthetic Memoir with Lily Dunn

The Class Work Project  with Shan Stephens

QUICK, ONLINE
READS

My Irish grandmother...

Article from The Irish Times

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Article:  My Favourite   

Books Ireland Magazine

​

Exterior Paint  

A short story  Resistance.

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COLLABORATIONS
& OTHER WORK

​

Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at the University of Leicester

 

Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick


Advisory Board Member, Dead Ink Books

 

Fellow of the  Royal Society of Literature


Ambassador of The Film & TV Charity

Ambassador of Listening Books

Member of The Society of Authors

 

Member of the The Black Writers' Guild

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Ambassador of Wellbeing in the Arts 

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Patron of The Bridport Prize

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Trustee of The Reading Agency 
 

Patron of Prisoners Abroad

 

Patron of Met Film School

 

Patron of Create Central

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PUBLISHED WORKS
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Without Warning and Only Sometimes

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Kit de Waal's effervescent memoir

The Trick to Time

​

"Heroically ordinary."

- Financial Times

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My Name Is Leon

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Best selling debut novel.

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Supporting Cast

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Capturing the extraordinary moments in our ordinary lives.

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“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

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