Description

A 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.

Publisher Review

Colin 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 * 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 * A memoir told through Grant's interaction with his family and others, but presented in impeccable prose and woven together with all the tensions and humour of the best fiction. A hugely enjoyable read. Get it now. -- Roger Robinson, author of A Portable Paradise