Nigerian-American and based in Sweden, author Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström is an award-winning author, speaker, and photographer. Her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Sunday Times Travel, The Telegraph, New York Times, and others. She is the author of the 2018 Lowell Thomas Award winner for best travel book, Due North, and bestselling LAGOM: Swedish Secret of Living Well. She has been recognized with multiple awards for her work, including 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award and she was honored with a MIPAD 100 (Most Influential People of African Descent) Award within media and culture in 2018. Her photography is represented by National Geographic Image Collection. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden’s capital city in depth.
We had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Lola about her debut novel, In Every Mirror She’s Black, including how the manuscript was rejected 70 times, along with book recommendations and more.
Hi, Lolá! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born in Nigeria, went to college in the US, and now call Sweden home. I consider myself a multipotentialite – someone who thrives on many interests and creative passions. So, in addition to being an author, I’m also a travel writer and travel photographer, speaker, run my own academy, and have my toes in a variety of different initiatives within the travel industry.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
Very early on in my pre-teens. Growing up in Nigeria, I started going to boarding school from around the age of 10-11 and I used to fill up notebooks with tons of short stories. I also had a sign-out sheet and was running my own mini library from my dorm room so friends could check out my stories and check them back in for the next person on the waitlist.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
Goodness, so many books. But I think it’s stumbling across D.H. Lawrence’s work in an English Literature class very early on (around 16 years old maybe?) that truly influenced my own dramatic style of writing. The way he can describe tension, over paragraphs, between a couple sitting in the same room not talking to each other is pure magic.
Your debut novel, In Every Mirror She’s Black, is out September 7th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Searing dimensions of Black womanhood.
What can readers expect?
As the amazing Taylor Jenkins Reid describes IEMSB, it is a wise and complicated exploration of the lives of three Black women in America and Sweden – “A sharply written story with messy, deeply moving characters, raising brutal questions and steering clear of easy answers.”
Every single character is flawed, complex, relatable, and above all, deeply human. IESMB’s nuanced take on misogynoir is one which you don’t really see coming.
Where did the inspiration for In Every Mirror She’s Black come from?
IEMSB was a story that organically developed after years of living in Sweden and observing how the voices of Black women resonate within society, which spaces we are invited to occupy or not, and if those spaces allow us to thrive or simply survive. Having lived in both Nigeria and the US for extended periods of time before moving to Sweden, I wanted to pull out the nuances of navigating the world in my skin against the backdrop of very different cultures.
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
You might not know this, but the manuscript for IEMSB was rejected 70 times!
Even an acquaintance of mine recently commented that they didn’t know there were even that many publishers in business. I found that hilarious.
IESMB is a book that spans genres, sits between literary and contemporary, and fully centers Black woman within a mainstream setting in a country that is revered globally.
Many publishers didn’t “see the vision” for publication based on these factors. Most of the time, rejection isn’t a personal indictment of you as an author. I know this because editors who could easily connect with vampires and werewolves couldn’t connect with Black women – fellow human beings.
I detailed that painful journey to publication here.
Fast forward and IESMB is coming into the world with three amazing publishers, Sourcebook Landmark (US/Canada), Head of Zeus (UK/Commonwealth), and Parresia Publishers (West Africa), plus there is also foreign rights interest coming in as well.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved Muna’s character so deeply and often cried when I wrote her life out on the page, because I connected with her deep isolation the most. As someone who has been isolated and sidelined so many times personally and professionally, I could feel Muna’s pain in trying to create connection and understanding of who she truly is as an individual.
My favorite character to conceptualize and create was Yagiz – a small business owner. I feel like everyone knows a “Yagiz” in their lives. Someone who is complex, flawed in his thinking, religious only for specific celebrations, has a strong work ethic, is a hardworking immigrant, has a warped view of women and feminism, still has a warmth about him, is charismatic, and wears so many politically incorrect hats. Someone you can’t fully classify as a good or bad person, but a person that exists in the murky middle.
What do you hope you readers take away from In Every Mirror She’s Black?
To me, the power of IEMSB is that everyone will walk away with something different. It could be anything from fully understanding that Black women are not monoliths to the effects of denial on not confronting issues, and how isolating and excluding even the strongest amongst us can end in tragic loss. There is no one specific “Black culture”. The same privilege of treating White people as individuals is long overdue for Black people.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
The writing community and the fellow authors I’ve crossed paths with have been amazingly supportive. I would say the best writing advice I got is to simply trust your voice and just get it down on paper (or laptop). Don’t worry about editing as you go. That comes later.
For me, it’s very hard to just push through “writer’s block” by staring at a blank page and writing whatever comes to mind. That works for many authors but doesn’t necessarily work for me.
What works for me is switching to another creative passion or talent I have and using that to reinspire me to write. Whether it’s my travel photography or narrative nonfiction, or pouring into other passion projects.
That tends to recharge my creativity as an author and I find my flow again.
What’s next for you?
I am working on several book ideas at the moment, including early stages of creating books that follow specific characters within IEMSB to get their own point of views or life stories. Lots on the horizon.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Three books I’ve read this year that I absolutely loved are:
- “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” by Deesha Philyaw
- “Wahala” by Nikki May (coming January 2022)
- “The Professional Troublemaker” by Luvvie Ajayi Jones
