Lemn Sissay: My Name Is Why

About the show

How does a government steal a child and then imprison him? How does it keep it a secret? This story is how. My Name is Why is the story of Lemn Sissay: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and ultimately triumph. Awarded the 2024 Hay Medal for Poetry, Lemn Sissay OBE FRSL is a playwright, memoirist, performer and broadcaster. His autobiography My Name is Why was a Number One Sunday Times Best Seller. At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Suffolk High Sheriff, Gulshan Kayembe invites Lemn back to Suffolk for this very special evening. This unique event is an opportunity to hear Lemn’s reflections on a childhood spent in care, self-expression and Britishness, and in so doing inform our own understanding of the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home.