AUTHOR CANDICE Brathwaite chats to Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett on the next episode of hit foodie podcast, Dish,.

Touching on her experience as a Black writer, preferring Coldplay to Beyonce and her penchant for a sneaky glass of wine, Brathwaite, told Grimshaw when her book ‘I Am Not Your Baby Mother’ hit the shelves in 2020, while the reaction was positive, it was also ‘bittersweet’.

She explained: “So let’s say it came out Thursday. George Floyd gets murdered Monday. And so it gets sucked into this vortex where everyone’s like, oh, this is one of the books you need to read to help you unlearn.

“And so, I love that book with all my heart, but there is a tinge of like, it’s very bittersweet. Because I often say to my husband, if we all didn’t watch a Black guy get murdered on our mobile phones, would such books have grown in popularity? I do question that all the time.

“And that’s not to belittle the power of I Am Not Your Baby Mother, ‘cause I didn’t know this at the time, but when it came out, it was the only book you could get in the entirety of the British Library about black motherhood written by a black British woman.”

Having written both ‘I Am Not Your Baby Mother’ and ‘Sister Sister’ before the death of George Floyd, Brathwaite revealed had she been in charge, her second book would have come out first.

Talking on the show about the challenges faced, Brathwaite explained: “So book two was originally the idea of book one. But, and again, it’s such an interesting conversation, the pushback for book one was that there aren’t enough black women who are gonna be interested in this material. Can you make it for a more diverse audience?

“That’s literally what they said. And again, that was, that was in a time before George Floyd.”

On the point there was a sea change in attitudes Brathwaite added: “They pushed back the idea. I stuck to my guns. And so, they were then like, oh, this is a great book, and I was just sitting there like, it’s the idea we’ve been throwing around for three and a half years.

“But now all of a sudden you believe there’s a market for it, you know? So if I, if I could have had it my way, Sista Sister would’ve been first, but what happens, happens.”

Speaking on why her writing has transitioned from being more ‘autobiographical’ to embracing fiction, she said: “You know what? I just got tired of mining my own life.

“I had a really hardcore upbringing. A lot of violence, a lot of trauma, a lot of pain. And I was like when do I get some time off?”

She added: “I was just like, I’m tired of going through my life in this way. I want a bit of a break. And so that was the encouragement to go down the fiction (route) and fiction is so freeing.

“Also, I think I’ve got one more adult book left in me, and then I’m leaving the adults for good, because there is such a joy to doing school visits and meeting twelve-year-olds and thirteen year olds, and seeing this light in their eyes.

“I’m like, ah, this is where I wanna catch readers.”

Dish from Waitrose & Partners, hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett is available on all podcast providers now.

Up for some dominoes? All roads lead to Croydon