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

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, author of Dadland

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

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, author of The Kids

Reaches new depths of emotional honesty... Courageous and well-crafted, and it pierced this reader's heart.

Nicholas Rankin, author of Churchill's Wizards

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

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 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 Can’t Miss in 2023*

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.

Observer

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

Thoughtfully and meticulously constructed... A refined yet unflinching book.

Sunday Times

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

Under Grant's meticulous gaze, layers of historic Black British familial dysfunction are peeled back and subjected to loving scrutiny.

Guardian

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

Thought-provoking... Witnessing the next generation acquaint themselves with their Caribbean heritage, without perceiving it a burden, fills the author, and the reader, with hope.

Times Literary Supplement

This question of how love, aspiration, and identity is transmitted across generations and continents, of what is lost, what is distorted, and what can be salvaged and repurposed, is the central thread that runs through.

New York Review of Books

Colin Grant takes us round his family and to the Caribbean and back, exploring deep feelings to do with memory, hope, loss and a determination to survive. There are great moments of sadness and humour.

New Statesman, *Books of the Year*

Fascinating, brilliant, subtle, educative book.

Michael Rosen, author of We're Going on a Bear Hunt

[Grant’s] seventh book… offers a broader 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

Guardian