Kit was born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father and brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Her debut novel, My Name Is Leon, was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, and winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022, it was adapted for television by the BBC.
Kit’s second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and her young adult novel ‘Becoming Dinah’ was shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. A collection of short stories, Supporting Cast, was published in 2020. An anthology of working-class memoir, Common People, was crowdfunded and edited by herself in 2019.
Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions, as well as the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020.
She was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Professor and Writer in Residence at Leicester University.
Her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in August 2022, and her latest work The Best of Everything will be released in April 2025.
