I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be: A Memoir in Eight Lives

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A memoir told through a series of intimate portraits, which build into a poignant, insightful and unforgettable testimony of West Indian British experience 'A natural storyteller. This is a compelling and charming read' Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER 'I'm black, so you don't have to be,' Colin Grant's uncle Castus used to tell him. For Colin, born in Britain to Jamaican parents, things were supposed to be different. If he worked hard and became a doctor, he was told, his race would become invisible; he would shake off the burden he believed his parents' generation had carried. The reality turned out to be very different. This is a memoir told through a series of intimate intergenerational portraits. We meet Grant's mother Ethlyn, disappointed by working-class life in Luton, who dreams of returning to Jamaica; his father Bageye, a maverick and small-time ganja dealer with a violent temper; his sister Selma, who refashioned herself as an African princess; his great uncle Percy, estranged from his family through his own pride. 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 poignant and insightful testimony of the black British experience. Written with the intrigue, nuance, beauty and wit of short stories, and with the veracity and painful revelation of memoir, I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be is an unforgettable exploration of family, identity, race and generational change.

Reviews

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 of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER
Thoughtfully and meticulously constructed... [a] refined yet unflinching book. * Sunday Times *
[A]n 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 *
Related to the question of "Are you really black enough" is the question "Are you really British enough" ... 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 *
I'm Black So You Don't Have To Be...offers... [an] account of his life in eight absorbing and nuanced chapters; portraits of family members and others, complete with detailed memories, sharp and funny descriptions on British Caribbean ways of living and being, and reflections on the legacy of intergenerational trauma. * Observer *
Under Grant's meticulous gaze, layers of historic Black British familial dysfunction are peeled back and subjected to loving scrutiny. * Guardian *
Grant creates a memoir that delves into the first-hand experience of generations trying to find their sense of self in a shifting, hostile world. * Stylist, *25 Non-Fiction Books You Cant Miss in 2023* *
A reminder that the West Indian experience in Britain...has been rougher than rough. Grant's exuberant family story reflects their rude triumphs and tragic reverses. * National *
Unflinching, honest and supremely intelligent, this wonderful collection of linked memoir essays cements Grant's reputation as a chronicler of the Black British experience... An artful exploration of others in order to illuminate the self. We are always in the hands of Grant's singular and deft voice, moving from the funny to the tragic in swift, confident strides. -- Hannah Lowe, Costa Prize-winning author of THE KIDS
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, T.S. Eliot Prize-winning author of A PORTABLE PARADISE
I want everyone to read this book. Not only for the transformative powers of its humanity and lucidity, but because it is brimming with life. Tender yet shocking, funny yet sad, compelling and yet challenging too. It's revelatory. It's unsettling. And so utterly vivid with character and talk. I loved it more than I can say. But more than that, it changed my perception of how things really are. Colin Grant opened the door to me. -- Keggie Carew, Costa Prize-winning author of DADLAND
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
Colin Grant ... reaches new depths of emotional honesty. I'm Black So You Don't Have To Be is courageous and well-crafted, and it pierced this reader's heart. -- Nicholas Rankin, author of CHURCHILL'S WIZARDS

Author Bio

Colin Grant is an author, historian and critic. He has written acclaimed biographies of the Wailers and of Marcus Garvey. Bageye at the Wheel, his memoir of growing up in a Caribbean family in 1970s Luton, was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize. His history of epilepsy, A Smell of Burning, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. His most recent book, Homecoming- Voices of the Windrush Generation, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. He is director of WritersMosaic and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.