In 2005, 13-year-old Jade LB began work on a story documenting the misadventures of a fictional London teenager named Keisha, posting chapters on the now-defunct blogging site Piczo. Her story went viral, and has been hailed since as a landmark in Black British literature. Fast-forward 16 years and LB (retaining her anonymity) returned to her story, publishing the original blog entries in a book alongside a revised version, which she called Keisha Revisited.
A gritty portrait of teenage desire and abuse written in dialect, the original version – or “the OG” – opens with Keisha going to her friend Shanice’s house and hooking up with Shanice’s brother, Ricardo. The following day, she visits another lover, Ramel. When she accidentally shouts Ricardo’s name during sex, Ramel accuses her of being a prostitute, after which “ma eyes caught a shank. I quickly picked it up an dashed it at him an ran out of da room dwn da stairz.” Things get worse for Keisha as she is taunted about her sexual history by a street gang who later subject her to a brutal assault.
