I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be

A Memoir in Eight Lives

By: Colin Grant

Narrated by: Colin Grant

Brought to you by Penguin.

'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 small-time criminal 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 black British experience. Written 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 a unforgettable exploration of family, identity, race and generational change.

©2022 Colin Grant (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic 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)

"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)