Lupita Nyong’o continues to inspire black people around the world. She’s added ‘author’ as the latest feather on her cap. Her new book Sulwe teaches children to embrace self-love. It aims to help them ‘walk with joy in their own skin’.
Sulwe is a Dholuo word that means ‘star’. The main character in the book goes by this name. She’s dark skinned, the darkest in her family in fact. Sulwe’s constant wish is to be lighter and beautiful like her mother and sister- until a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.
Lupita has always been vocal about colourism. She challenges the European standards of beauty being considered the benchmark for everyone. In her own childhood, she faced discrimination because of her dark complexion. “I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned,” she said in her speech at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood luncheon.
Her book is instrumental in spreading the message of self- acceptance especially among people of colour. Sulwe is targeted at children in lower primary school since they are at an impressionable age. “Childhood is the time when you learn all the things that you spend the rest of your life trying to unlearn,” says Lupita. And we agree. What better age to begin practising self-love than the early years?