My earliest reading memory
I was on the tube with my siblings when I was around seven. I was reading Sue Townsend’s The Queen and I, which is about the royal family relocating to a council estate. We had to change trains, but I was so absorbed, I only realised as the doors closed that my siblings were shouting at me from the platform and I was going on without them.
My favourite book growing up
Ursula K Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy. I reread it recently because I wanted to give a copy to my niece, and it struck me how many of my beliefs and principles are actually things I learned from Ursula at eight years old.
The book that changed me as a teenager
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. I’d never read anything so involving or expansive. I was 13, I think. Around the same time, I was given Wu Cheng’en’s Monkey. I carried that book around in my pocket until it fell apart. I don’t know if either book changed me. But they definitely made me more excited and less afraid.
The writer who changed my mind
When I first met James Joyce I felt like I’d been embraced by a lost parent. I was around 18. Ulysses illuminated everything. It was probably the reason I got interested in Greek mythology. Probably the reason I wrote Brand New Ancients. Joyce stunned me. Pushed me. Infuriated me. Accompanied me. Like the best ones do.
The book that made me want to be a writer
It was music that made me want to be a writer. The great rappers of the 90s and 00s, old-time country and folk, plus the political and religious lyricism of late 70s and early 80s roots reggae. But the landmark texts that made me sure I had to keep going were William Faulkner, Light in August; Knut Hamsun, Hunger; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon; William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Shattered me, the lot of them, and put me back together more determined.
The book I came back to
The Bible. Hey, it’s a good story.
The book I reread
James Baldwin’s Another Country and EL Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel.
The book I could never read again
I used to read David Icke’s books. Before the internet. Imagine that. Not got the stomach for it any more.
The book I discovered later in life
Stone Butch Blues. I’d never heard of it until 10 years ago, but the jolt that went through me the minute I started to read was something I’d never experienced before and haven’t since. I’d been walking round dead a long time. Reading that book was the start of accepting myself and learning that who I was didn’t have to be a source of shame. It was like a shot of pure love that brought me back to life. Bless you forever, saint of my heart Leslie Feinberg, for loving us the way you do. When I think of how many lives that book must have saved I want to cry.
The book I am currently reading
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings. Sean Bonney, Letters Against the Firmament and Patrick Hamilton, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. I read lots at the same time. I always have. I enjoy the cross-pollination.
My comfort read
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton.
• Kae Tempest is the author of Divisible by Itself and One (Picador), which is longlisted for the 2024 Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
