Description
Book SynopsisA memoir told through a series of intimate portraits, which build into a poignant, insightful and unforgettable testimony of West Indian British experience.
***A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***
'Grant is a natural storyteller... Compelling and charming'
BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of Girl, Woman, Other
'Grant's most revealing work'
NEW STATESMAN
‘I’m black, so you don’t have to be,’ Colin Grant’s uncle Castus used to tell him. If Colin – born in Britain to Jamaican parents – worked hard and became a doctor, his race would become invisible; he would shake off the burden his parents’ generation had carried. The reality turned out to be very different.
This is a memoir told through a series of intimate portraits, including of Grant’s mother Ethlyn, his father Bageye, his sister Selma, and his great uncle Percy. Each character we meet is navigating their own path. Each life informs Grant’s own shifting sense of his identity. Collectively, these stories build into an unforgettable testimony of black British experience.
Trade ReviewColin Grant writes about the characters in his family with
the mischievous, dramatic flair of a natural storyteller. This is a compelling and charming read. -- Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author Girl, Woman, Other
An important and timely book for an increasingly diverse and diffuse set of communities, a reminder of those questions of home and belonging, an invitation to parse them. * Guardian *
Fascinating, brilliant, subtle, educative book. -- Michael Rosen, author of We're Going on a Bear Hunt
This outstanding memoir contains a beautiful tenderness and a courageous realness.
Vibrant, poignant and brutally frank, it is rooted in authenticity and wisdom, the details of a world well-observed. Grant's work here is powerful, evocative, empowered and forthright. -- Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death
Grant's most revealing work... This compelling and poignant book gives a convincing answer to the first question: that there is more than one way to be black. * New Statesman *
