Lola Akinmade

“There’s nothing more powerful than taking up space and fully standing in your power, and nothing more visible than refusing to be put in a box.” - Lola Akinmade

Lola Akinmade was born in Nigeria. 

There are over 250 tribes there, speaking about 500 different languages and dialects. 

“Culture is important to me. Growing up in a melting pot I learned how to exist respectfully with other cultures and languages.”

She moved to the USA at the age of 15 to study IT. She achieved her first college degree at the age of 19 and started working as a computer programmer and software developer. She would go on to receive her Masters degree and work as a GIS system architect for many years.

In 2002, she volunteered with the Eco-Challenge expedition race in Fiji. Her task was to write stories and dispatches about the competition, culture, and landscapes, and publish them on the official race website so people around the world could follow along. She realized how much she loved being the eyes and ears of the reader on the ground, and telling the stories of different cultures. This was the moment she knew she wanted to become a travel writer and photographer.

Once back in the USA, she met her (ex) Swedish husband a few years later. In the beginning of their relationship, they looked into where to live and decided due to his work as a sports journalist at the time, it had to be in Sweden. She was the one with the flexible work as a programmer.

“Coming to Sweden, I realized I was grateful for moving to the USA first instead of directly to Sweden from Nigeria.” she says “If I had come to Sweden directly, then my experience would have been different. I personally would have given up my voice and potential for self-actualization because I would simply remain quiet since the trains run on time and never lose electricity.”

She remembers the effect of seeing other self-actualizing Black women in the USA and how they succeeded against all odds such as prejudice, discrimination, racism, and patriarchy. Seeing them made her realize it was achievable.

When she moved to Sweden, she saw clearly what boxes society had already created and what society was saying her place in its hierarchy was. But she knew better because she knew she had more to offer, and wanted more than what society was willing to allow her.  “I saw the likes of Oprah Winfrey and other Black women making it happen in the US in a more racially-potent society. So, I knew it was possible to go beyond the “box” given to me as a Black woman here in Sweden.”

She also noticed that there were different survival techniques amongst various Black women she met in Sweden. Many survived by not rocking the boat, by being properly assimilated (versus integrated) and being quiet and “comfortable”, while some kept their dreams aside because they dared not demand to take up space. 

“I understood that was the way they learned to survive and that survival has many faces,” she says. “So I hold non-judgemental space for people and never judge how someone else chooses to simply survive if they feel thriving is currently beyond their reach at the moment.”

“Growing up in Nigeria where almost everyone was Black and looked like me, and then moving to the USA into predominantly white spaces, I learned how to fully take space in those environments by bringing all of me,” she says, “I was able to bring those tools with me and  apply that to my life in Sweden. If we are always breaking ourselves into parts to be accepted, we will never be enough."

She has been living in Sweden for 15 years now, raising the next generation of Swedes. 

Her work as an award-winning travel writer and photographer made her realize that all over the world and within different cultures, people simply want to feel fully seen, feel safe and have a sense of belonging. 

“I use my platform to tell stories. I have written pieces for the New York Times, BBC, CNN, National Geographic, and many major publications.” Lola says. “But to fully address the issue of belonging, I had to express it through fiction. By sharing a fictional character’s life and day-to-day experience in society, I could give the reader the feeling of what it’s like being that person.”

Her first critically-acclaimed fiction novel “IN EVERY MIRROR SHE’S BLACK” talks about the everyday lives of three Black women who found themselves living in Sweden for different reasons 

The book got so many rejections from publishers in the beginning, not only in Sweden but also in the USA and UK. However, the rejections came with high praise below, which was confusing for her literary team.

“In that book, I was centering Black women in a place that is traditionally white. A region I call the last bastion of whiteness - the Nordics.” she explains “The publishers’ minds could not make space for that type of story.” 

The editors responded that they could not connect with the characters. “They could easily connect with sexy vampires and werewolves but not with Black women?” she notes.

The journey to publication for the book was tough, but Lola pushed through because she knew these stories needed to be told. She knew readers would connect with the stories because they are raw and real, and publishers were gatekeeping these stories from them. Once it got out, the readers connected so well with the book and the reception of the stories of these women was incredible. The Independent UK called it the most “thought-provoking” book published that year by a Black author. She got so many emails from people seeing themselves in these women.

“There was also an Irishman who reached out and said he saw so much of himself in the Somali refugee character Muna. His sense of feeling outside and excluded as an Irishman was pretty similar to her experience.”

The book got popular and was so well received she knew she had to continue the journey and educate further on. So, she wrote a follow up book “EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH” which went on to be nominated for the prestigious NAACP Award for Outstanding Literature in the USA.

“The second book challenges the reader to wake up. It shares stories of men and women making mistakes and how society judges them differently.” she says “It helps you interrogate your own bias and preconceived notions of what people are doing versus what society says they should be doing.” 

The book explains a reality she heard from Oscar-winning African American actor Denzel Washington -> “White people often fail forward.” 

“As a Black woman, you are not given the same grace.” she says “That's what I wanted to show in my books.”

She would love to see a society that would want to do better when it knows better.

“I’ve finally realized that the reason I was brought to Sweden was to write these books.”

The reviews of the books have been wide-ranging both from Black and white demographics. A lot of white readers were surprised about how refugees felt and were treated in Sweden. As she expected, some white readers felt they couldn’t connect with these women because white women weren’t centered in the stories. Many Black women felt seen and connected with the characters. “But some Black women wanted the characters to be stronger, to not show their weaknesses, but that is what is breaking us. We don't always have to be strong in the midst of incredible pressure,” she points out. “We should also be treated with tenderness too.”

One Swedish white male journalist who reviewed the book focused on the white male character “Johan” as the “most important” character in the book because Lola, as the author, had created him with depth and nuance, and not made him an evil caricature of a white man in power. “Imagine, in a book that centers Black women, that journalist went in to go find himself. This also proved the importance of representation in the stories we tell.”

There were also many angry readers because of the ending of the book because they were looking for an “happily ever after” ending and didn’t get it from Lola.

“I wanted to show true reality as transparently as possible. If I had written a book about a Black woman being a refugee from Somalia, going through hardships and then immediately becoming the CEO of IKEA just because she worked hard? How realistic would that be in today’s Sweden. Let’s not kid ourselves. That’s the future we want. That’s not the reality of today at the moment.” 

She wanted to write a book that reflects the truth, where Black women did everything right and that was still not enough. 

“Question yourself when you feel uncomfortable around DEI. Ask yourself what you are afraid of losing? Is it a privilege or maybe is it just fear of the unknown? Is it finally accepting that you’ve historically been given an unfair advantage in life and that maybe the most qualified person for your current job doesn’t look like you?”

Her next book, BITTER HONEY, is coming out in May 2025. It talks about identity, personal struggles, belonging, and nationalism. The story is about a Black mother with biracial Swedish children. It centres on the in-between-ship that comes when you feel you can’t fully connect with either side of your racial identities. 

“No one culture has stayed the same from the beginning of time,” she says. “All cultures must evolve into a stronger version of itself, otherwise it will die out,” she says. “No one is trying to get rid of Pippi Långstrump. On the contrary, maybe the next evolution of Pippi in Swedish society is one wearing blue and yellow Ankara fabric. The evolution of a culture can be a very beautiful thing. We take the very best of all its subcultures to create a superculture adapted to the environment of the place.”