Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S3 Ep7: Bookshelfie: Afua Hirsch

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

Recently named as one of the most influential people of African heritage in the UK, Afua Hirsch takes us on a journey through the books that have shaped her. Afua Hirsch is a writer, broadcaster and author. Her book Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging was published in 2018 and became a Sunday Times bestseller, kickstarting a national conversation about what it means to grow up a person of colour in the UK. She had previously been the legal correspondent and West Africa correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, Social Affairs Editor at Sky News, and a barrister. More recently Afua has presented numerous TV and radio documentaries, written a children’s book about the UK’s first female supreme court judge and started her own fashion brand.   Afua’s book choices are:  ** Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison  ** Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo  ** Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche  ** The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson  ** Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys  Every week, join journalist and author Yomi Agedoke, and inspirational guests, including Elizabeth Day, Sara Pascoe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as they celebrate the best books written by women. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and has been running for over 25 years, and this series will offer unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2021 Prize winner.  This podcast is produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This year's International Women's Podcast Awards are taking place on Thursday the 29th of September at the Conduit London and via a global live stream. Deborah Francis White from the Guilty Feminist will be hosting the evening and we cannot wait to celebrate podcasters from all over the world who've created exceptional moments of audio brilliance. Tickets are available now, so to grab one and to find out more about the Amazon Music and Wondery Awards Fund, head to our website at skydarkcollective.com.com. With thanks to Bayleys, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Yomiya Degrake, your host for Season 3 of the Women's Prize Podcast. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2021,

and I guarantee you will be taking away plenty of reading recommendations. Each bookshelfy episode, we ask an inspiring woman to share the story per life, the five different books by women. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Bookshelfy. I'm Yomiya Degoke, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be your host for series three, where I'll be lucky enough to be interviewing some incredible women about the work of other incredible women. I'm excited to tell you that this year's short list is out,

and the six brilliant authors and their books can all be found on our website, www.women'spriceforfiction.com.com. We are still practicing safe social distancing. and this podcast is being recorded remotely. Now today's guest is writer, broadcaster, bestselling author, an all-round, wonderful person of Fouache. Her book British on race. Of course.

I mean, I added that little bit in because I'm right. That's my personal experience. Her book British on race, identity and belonging was published in 2018 and became a Sunday Times bestseller, kickstarting a national conversation about what it means to grow up as a person of colour in the UK. She has previously been the legal correspondent and West Africa correspondent for the Guardian newspaper,

social affairs editor at Sky News and a barrister. More recently, Afua has presented numerous TV shows and radio documentaries, written as children's book about the UK's first Supreme Court judge and started her own fashion brand, all alongside numerous public speaking appearances, journalism and activism. I'm genuinely out of breath.

This year, she was, was named one of the most influential people of African heritage in the United Kingdom. And she still had time to join us today. Welcome to the podcast, we are. Thank you. It's really good to be with you, Yomi. Likewise, man. Honestly, like, I could spend a lot of this intro, boring everyone with how much you are a brilliant person and how personally, like, honestly, I would like to say, like, how personally responsible. I feel like you have been to my journey within the industry. You are certainly one of the good ones.

I mean, I'm sure you remember basically telling me to quit my job. I do. I do. I do. And I also remember your boss basically asking me to meet you to persuade you to stay at your job. Yes. You need to leave that man. You are going to blow up.

I cannot. I cannot. Always a complete source of joy, not to mention vindication, to see you shining. And I don't deserve the credit at all, but I do feel very, very proud. You certainly. It's really cool to be with you do. I appreciate it. So let's get into books. Have you always been a big reader?

I have actually. I was that kid who was, I don't say socially awkward, but a bit kind of at odds with my surroundings. And books were definitely a refuge for me. So from a really young age, I would just bury myself in books. And that was, it was my escape. It was my coping mechanism. I was constantly searching for books about black people, children who look. like me because I grew up in a very white environment and I think that I was always kind of hoping that I could find something I related to in books and it took me a long time to find it because I grew up in the 80s and it was just really hard to get hold of books about black people in those days and it's one reason now that I'm really passionate about children's literature being genuinely representative and reflective of our stories because I remember what it would

have meant to me if I could have had that experience as the child. But I loved reading and I loved stories and storytelling. And I think that's actually been a big part of my professional journey as well as my kind of emotional and personal one. Absolutely. I remember reading about that actually in British. And I'm interested in how you feel, I suppose, the publishing industry and the sort of, I guess where you feel the conversations going now, do you feel optimistic in terms of the diversity that we have in books. How much do you think has changed from, you know, essentially the 80s when you were looking to see yourself represented? And do you think the change feels permanent? Because you know how this industry can be, peaks and troughs. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, there is definitely

an optimism because in terms of children's literature, I have a nine-year-old daughter. She has dozens, I want to say nearly a hundred books of black kids, children, from Africa, the Caribbean, African-American stories, black British stories. It's completely normal for her to open a book and see someone who looks like her in it. There are books about black dads doing their little girl's hair. There are books about black girls doing ballet.

There are books about returning to the African content first time. You know, there's just so many. And I think that reflects something that is changing and publishing, that there was always the odd book by a black author in Britain, but it was such a single narrative. It was like there was only space for one. And that book was then kind of held as the definitive book about being black. And it just made it really hard to have nuance and diversity within our stories. And I remember when my book came out,

which was 2018, being really self-conscious that I was not trying to hold myself forward as being this single narrative of being this authority on the black experience. I was just telling my story. And I think in the period since then, it has started to change that we're hearing so many different voices that represent different class identities, gender and sexuality, you know, within the Black-British experience, those different stories are coming through. So that is really, really positive, and I think it is important to acknowledge that. However, I think when you look at the pattern of power and money within the publishing industry, very little has changed. The gatekeepers are still predominantly white, still from a very specific background, privately educated, Oxbridge,

usually from quite privileged families. It still feels too much like a close shot, people giving jobs to their kids and their friends' kids. And, you know, the prevailing culture within publishing still seems totally unrepresentative of this country. So I think there is no room for complacency at all.

Could not have said it better myself. Have you been able to read more or less over the last year during lockdown? My reading journey is a funny one because I was a judge on the Booker Prize in 2019. And that was the first time that I nearly got broken by books. I was like, that was the year books broke me because I love reading. I read a lot, you know.

I usually read probably between 50 and 100 books in a year. During five months of being a judge on the Booker Prize, I had to read 150 books and I had to read at least half of them two or three times. And it was a good book of course. killer. It was really hard and it was such a huge sense of responsibility because I know how influenced I used to be by bookers short lists and long lists and I just felt it was so important to do justice to these authors and these books. But I work full time, you know what I mean? It wasn't like you can stop working and just devote yourself to reading, which by the way would have been a

heavenly, heavenly job. If all I had to do was be a booker judge, I think that would have been the best year ever. So it was really hard. So I have to say that since then, I have kind of enjoyed the luxury of not having to read a book a week. In Booker Times, it was a book a day. It was literally a book a day. I had to get through a book a day. And now sometimes I get through a book in a day or two, but sometimes I take three weeks and that feels like heaven. So yeah, so lockdown, I've been taking my time and loving it.

Okay, so we're going to go onto your first bookshelfy book, which is Song of Solomon by Tony Morrison. Mate, your book choices, I'm not going to try and show favouritism, but I have to admit, very excited by your bookshelfies. Like clicking along to a lot of your picks. So tell us about when you first read this book. So, you know, I was saying that as a child, it was really difficult to get hold of books about black people and stories about blackness. And discovering Tony Morrison was. a completely life-changing experience for me. Because not only is she a black woman author,

but her stories are so profoundly about the black experience and about your relationship with blackness and about your history and heritage and about your dreams and your loves. And it's just so, it's so powerful. It's so immersive and intense. And I do love literary fiction. I love very poetic literature.

I love authors who really command language and just do new things with words. And Tony Morrison for me is the high bar. There's such a magical quality tie writing. I love magical realism. I love the kind of supernatural. And, you know, it resonates to me on a cultural level as well. Because, you know, our cultures, people of African heritage, we kind of come from this background where, you know, the past, the present, the future, they all kind of coexist in

different realms at the same time and they're part of our spiritual legacy and I just felt like when I read Tony Morrison, I was able to experience that as a reader for the first time. So she just had a totally monumental impact on me as a teenager. And I read every single book she'd written at the time. And Song of Solomon was just the one that I think because of the poetry of it and because it's so, it's kind of biblical and there's just, there's such a surreal quality to it, but it's also very much grounded in a kind of social political situation in the South of the United States. And I just, it just resonated with me. It just resonated me. And what happened was weird because I read it. I think I was about 14 when I read it. And then I reread it when I was about 30, I think,

maybe in my early 30s. And it was so bizarre because when I reread it, I realized that there are things about myself that I kind of invented based on that book that like as a teenage, you know, it's such a formative time.

Things about the way I thought or the way I processed emotions or like language I used internally had actually come from that book and over time I'd forgotten that's where it came from. But when I reread it, it was like reading some kind of inner dialogue of my own and it was so, it was just a really unsettling,

but also quite magical experience to realise that Tony Morrison had kind of written part of my emotional architecture without me having fully appreciated at the time, that's what she'd done. So that book, it makes me emotional. It's just, it's very special to me. But also, if you don't have that emotional relationship with it,

it is just, I think, a masterpiece of storytelling on so many levels. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about your career and career trajectory. legal background and then you went into journalism and you've just done so much stuff as outlined within the intro.

Did your career organically move from one profession to the other or was it something, was ever a moment where you sort of thought, okay, I'm doing this and this is now a shift, I want to do something else? How did you get from A to B because they are quite different, you know, journeys

in industries? Yeah, that's true. That's a fair affair. commentary. There is a thread in that I've always done the thing that really made sense to me at the time. Probably doesn't sound like a very strong theme. I've always done the thing that I really believed I was meant to do at the moment that I made the decision. But that did involve some quite radical shifts, as you said. So my first job was actually working in international development in West Africa. I lived in Senegal. And that was because when I went to university, I discovered de-holonization. I

discovered pan-African intellectual theories and literature. I just kind of got into the academic side of the African experience and neo-colonialism and the history, the economics. And I decided that I really wanted to live on the African continent, that I wanted to be useful in this kind of ongoing process of decolonization. So I went to work for this nonprofit foundation that was trying to build more democratic societies along African values. And it was a really interesting experience. And also I lived in Senegal, which meant I learned French. And I just wanted to get to know more of the African continent,

especially West Africa, because my mum's from Ghana. So I've always felt the West African subcontinent is kind of the place that I really connect to. And doing that work led me to want to be a lawyer because I just felt like I wanted a skill. And I was working in international development. and I was doing grant making and doing due diligence on small NGOs that did this work at grassroots level. But I just didn't feel like I could really add anything that could really justify my presence there in a way and getting paid the salary and dollars to just kind of go around making grants.

I just felt that if I had a profession or I had something tangible that I could do, I would be more useful. So I came back to London and went to the bar. I converted to law. I became a barrister. And it was all with this idea that I would be based at the bar in England and Wales, but I would work internationally and I would do cases and litigation and I would do human rights work. But it was just really hard to do because as a junior barrister, especially doing legal aid, which I was doing all human rights work, you know, immigration, asylum, homelessness, crime.

It was really, really, really grueling. You make hardly any money and you really can't go off as I did a few times, like to Liberia to do some work with the press and stuff like that, which was the whole reason I became a lawyer. So that became quite frustrating because I just ended up doing kind of pub rules, you know, defending your usual Friday night madness in English towns. And it was never the vision that I had. And then the Guardian was looking for legal correspondent.

So I just decided that that would be the perfect way of combining my desire to tell stories, communicate, kind of be an advocate, with my legal background. And that does seem really random, but when I was at school, I used to do journalism. So I used to write for the voice newspaper when I was a teenager. But journalism was kind of my first love, and I've always loved telling stories.

And that's also a thread through everything I've done, that I just want to communicate what I learn and what I see, and especially the injustice and the unfairness that I perceive everywhere. I've always wanted to try and reach people to understand it and be motivated to change it. So, and then once I was a journalist at The Guardian, that sent me on this journey where now I'm, this American that I interviewed gave me a label for what I do, which I find really useful, which is useful for you as well, Yomi.

I don't know if you've ever used it, but I'm a media multi-hyphenate. You know, Americans are so good. Oh, I like that. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? It was Elaine Welteroth who said that. I don't know if you know who she's like the former editor of Teen Vogue. And now she's, yeah. She writes scripted project.

She presents TV shows, she writes, and it's quite similar to the range in a very different field because she's in fashion. It's quite similar to the range of things I do. So I was like, I'm going to use that too. That's perfect. I'm a media multi-hyphenate. So that is a kind of short version of my journey, but the themes have always been an interest in social justice, in structural inequality and in how to tell stories to make people better

understand and also care. So before we get to your second bookshelf for your Fuwa, I just want to talk again a bit more about your journey and your career because I think when me and Elizabeth interviewed you for Slane Your Lane, God knows how many years ago, a while ago. Yeah, a while. You know, a while. You're already very established, hence why we reached out to you

as one of our, like, incredible women that we wanted to speak to. But I don't think British had been released then. And then obviously British came out and, you know, I mean, since then it's obviously been showing. stratospheric and that brings a lot of things positive and negative in terms of visibility and scrutiny. And I think you've been doing the work for a very long time in terms of these conversations, but obviously post-British, let's say a different, you know, there's a demographic of people that weren't necessarily privy to it before that then became so. And, you know, then, you know,

there was a lot of sort of, I suppose, yeah, backlash at times from racist for lack of better phrase. And I've always very much admired the grace with which you are able to, I guess, navigate that, just that, essentially. So I'm interested in what advice, I suppose, you'd offer. I mean, that level of vitriol is something that many female journalists and writers and creatives can relate to you, but obviously specifically black female journalist and writers can. I really honestly would be interested in what advice you have in terms of remaining sense. I suppose when you're speaking your truth and people decide to, you know, interpret that how they see fit, which often is incorrect. Thanks, Yomi. Well, it's a difficult one because I definitely

have coping mechanisms, but I also never want to be dismissive of it, especially as I'm conscious that there might be other and younger black women or other women of color listening to this, who want to enter the public domain and kind of take part in these discussions, but also might find themselves receiving the same kind of trolling and abuse that I do. And I think, I mean, the fact that you even have to prepare people for it is so wrong. It shouldn't be a factor. But the reality is it is. In my case, I had definitely got quite a lot of experience before my book came out because

I'm sure you know this because you've written for the Guardian as well. on me, Guardian journalists, black women who write for the Guardian are one of the most trolled demographic groups in Britain. The Guardian did some research on the responses on their website and they found that the most abused journalists were the few women of colour at the paper at the time. And it's not Guardian readers, it's people who despise the Guardian and everything it stands for that will go on and go out of their way to write abusive comments when people like me or you write things. So I remember that. That was a shock because I was younger then. I was still in my 20s. I'd been practicing law. Suddenly I'm at The Guardian and suddenly I'm

just this hate figure and I couldn't understand why I was just reporting and writing stuff that was true. So it was a real shock, but it gave me time to really prepare myself so that by the time my book came out, I was used to the fact that I trigger that response. And part of me feels that when you look at the people who are triggered and you look at what they're saying, in a way, this sounds weird, but in a way it's vindicating because, first of all, if they were happy with what I was saying, I would be worried because they stand for everything that I don't. And secondly, when you look at the things they say, in a way it's reassuring because they very rarely actually attempt to criticise the points that I'm making, the research

that I've done, the narrative or the critique that I offer. Instead, they attack me personally. and I think that speaks to their fragility that they really can't find anything to latch onto in what I'm saying that's not true or that's not correct and accurate. So they're reduced to just lashing out. And I say this more than anyone about commentators and editors in the right wing press

who've been among some of the most unbelievable trolls of mine. And again, who've resorted to attacking me personally saying things like one, and I'll never forget this, The Times reviewed my book when it came out by saying that I smoke a lot of weed And, you know, at the time, I had to ask my literary agent, well, like, if that was a literary phrase that I hadn't heard of, you know, that kind of some kind of critique of my writing. And he was like, no, they're just saying that you look like someone who smokes a lot of weed. And I was, that was, again, kind of, that was a moment which I realized I was still naive because I just didn't think that the times, the newspaper of record could resort to just racist abuse like that. It wasn't based on my book. I had nothing to do my book. There are no references to weed in my. my book. It was just racist bullying. So that kind of thing will always knock you. And I think

unfortunately, you do have to be aware of it. And I also, I don't want to downplay it. I think lately I've really started to pull back from some spaces. I've realized that, especially when it comes to TV debates, there are platforms that really don't exist to give you a space to have a conversation, they exist to try and dehumanize you as a form of entertainment. So when I'm invited onto those platforms, and typically it's like three angry right-wing white people with me as the token woman, the token black person, the token person of the left. And it's not asking me to justify my position on something like Brexit or structural racism. It's asking me to justify my humanity, to have the right, to have an opinion and a perspective and a lived experience. And that I think is

completely unacceptable. So I have become a lot more selective about the spaces I put myself into. And that's just for me, having learned the hard way, what situations I can tolerate and justify because I think it's furthering a conversation and what situations I think are part of the problem actually contributing to this idea that you can abuse black people as a form of entertainment. But I think everyone has to make their own choice. I just try and help people make a more informed choice, but I don't judge people who still put themselves in those spaces. I think that they're brave and often they're motivated by having a really strong message that they want to communicate. But I do reserve the right to judge the media for creating those platforms and

creating them in a way that is completely unfair and is set up to further the dehumanization of black people. I just think that it's totally unacceptable. We're going to move on to your next, your second book, Shelfy, which is the excellent. Girl Woman, Other by Bernardine of Areisto. Please tell me about when you first read this book and what it was like judging this book and awarding it the Book of Prize. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I was lucky enough to be one of the first people to read this book because it was submitted as a booker entry before it was published. I read it three times because we read everything once. We read everything that was long listed twice and everything that was shortlisted three times. So I got to know this book really well. and I actually loved it more with each subsequent reading.

I think that Bernardine is somebody who has always intrigued me because I've always thought she was a really good writer and she's got an incredible longevity. You know, she's been an author for so many years, decades. And yet she never seemed to have the recognition that it seemed really obvious to me and other people I know who admire her work that she deserved. And I think it says something about being a black woman,

in Britain. I think, and there's a difference with America as well. I think there's a more of an established sense of an audience for books by black women in America. It's a bigger industry. It's better resourced. It has more international traction. And Bernardine didn't even have an international agent for her book when she won the booker. So, you know, it was not only not being published in other countries, but there wasn't even a system around it for it to be published in other countries, which to me is bizarre. So it was just really fortuitous that she wrote what I think is her best book when I happen to be a judge at the booker because it's just a masterpiece.

And, you know, I related to it so personally, but that's not why I voted to award it the prize. That was because I just thought it was beautifully crafted, so cleverly to. structured, so seamlessly written. And a real book for the ages, I think, as, you know, Black British people, this is a book that I think we will, for generations, hand out and feel that our story was told in this beautiful way. So I'm really, that book always makes me smile. It's just perfection. It's such a brilliant book. And Bernie is, of course, a judge this year for the women's fiction prize, which is a nice sort of synergy.

I just want to say as well, actually, she also has like endless energy. She's part of so many literary initiatives, like helping other authors, judging prizes. She still teaches. She's just somebody who seems indefatigable in her mission, not just of being an incredible writer, but also elevating writing and elevating new authors and new voices. And I admire that so much because she really doesn't have to. She does that because she believes in it. And I think she's a real role model from that perspective as well.

That very nicely actually leads me on to my next question. Because I was going to say, I do think that a real kind of, you know, similarity between you and Bernardine is just how, I suppose, how committed you guys are to ensuring that the next generation, you know, are paid their dues and supporting upcoming voices. You both do that. Because I feel like it's crazy that you're both such high-profile writers and have both had real impacts on my career,

not just in a lofty sort of sense because you're both incredible writers, but genuinely by putting yourselves out there to help me, shout out to Bernardine, she's done the same. And I'm interested in why that's so important to you in terms of ensuring that, you know, young, especially minority, especially young, minority,

female voices are supported because I know that's something you do and you work across various organisations to ensure that that's something you're doing. Yeah, well, thank you for saying that. It's true. I mean, I suppose my writing, the reason I wrote my book, it was really for my younger self. It was because I will never forget what it was like being a teenage girl with an identity crisis,

dealing with racism in so many insidious forms and not having a community around me who I could relate to, not even having a language to explain or navigate what I was going through. And so now I just feel that if I can reach my younger self, any young person who's going through that, then everything I went through will make sense to me because it's helped me get to a place where I can make that a better situation for another generation. And then I think in terms of the industries that I've worked in every single industry, international development, the legal profession, newspaper journalism, TV journalism, now films and scripted projects, every single industry I've worked in. Black people have been chronically underrepresented and not because they're less talented. On the contrary, and I have this kind of dual consciousness where obviously I navigate these worlds and I do my work, but I also have relationships with people who are trying to access these industries who I'm supporting. And I see how talented they are, how much they have to contribute, often how much more talented they are than people who are already in these industries.

And I see the barriers. So I can't justify me being there if I'm not trying to make it better, make it more fair, give them access in some way. And, you know, people have done that for me as well. I would not have had my first break in journalism at the voice newspaper, where it not for an older generation of editors, just spotting something in me, seeing my enthusiasm, seeing my appetite, my hunger to tell stories and learn to write journalistically and really nurturing me. And I think actually it's quite common that black journalists, who are in the mainstream, often start in the black press

because that's the only place we find people who are actually invested in nurturing us, who see us as part of their community, who care about our progression. And, you know, if it hadn't been for that incubator, I wouldn't have been able to go to The Guardian or to Sky News or to the BBC with the confidence and the experience that I already had.

So I've benefited from that. Every stage in my career, I've had someone who's really had my back, who's looked out for me, who's helped nurture me. And it's been genuinely transformational. As much as I can, and there's always more to do, I always try and do that. It's a big part of my mission.

And also, I've enjoyed a lot of privilege in my life. I went to private school. I went to Oxford. I had a middle-class upbringing. And while that fed into my identity crisis, because it was really hard for me to find a way of easily reconciling my blackness with that environment, I also enjoyed the privilege of having access to these elite institutions. And again, it's not necessarily earned. You know, if I hadn't had those advantages, it would have been a lot harder for me to get there. And so I can only make sense of the privilege I've had if I'm trying to make it more fair for people who haven't.

Do you know what I mean? And not in a patronising way, but just because I see the structural unfairness in that situation. So I always find it funny when my right-wing critics, one of the things they like to say about me is that, like, how dare I critique Britain because I went to Oxford? And I always think it's so funny because if I hadn't been to Oxford, they wouldn't have read any of my work. They wouldn't have regarded me as a legitimate voice to even have a critique. Yeah, because that's how they are. That is how biased and unfair this country is. And yet, when I use that privilege to critique the thing that I've benefited from, then they say that it doesn't make sense.

And it's just, you know, I mean, it speaks volumes about them. But it's a small attempt at redistributive justice, you know, to just make sure that, I try and leave spaces more fair than I found them as a rule. Absolutely. And it's hard, but I try. This podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish Cream. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women,

celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, share the literary love and be part of the future of the Women's Prize Trust by making a one-off donation to support our important workers to charity. Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women regardless of their age, race, nationality or background to raise their voice and own their story. Search for Support the Women's Prize to find out more. This year's International Women's Podcast Awards are taking place on 3.

Thursday the 29th of September at the Conduit London and via a global live stream. Deborah Francis White from The Guilty Feminist will be hosting the evening and we cannot wait to celebrate podcasters from all over the world who've created exceptional moments of audio brilliance. Tickets are available now, so to grab one and to find out more about the Amazon Music and Wondery Awards Fund, head to our website at skydarkcollective.com.com.uk UK forward slash awards. Your third book is the excellent Americana by Chimamanda

Ngozier-Editicier, who was named the Women's Prize Winner of Winners by public vote to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Women's Prize with Harve Yellow Sun and that was last year. So can you I attended that online it was really special.

Yeah, I went to that and I was just like sat there, mouth agape at how articulate and incredible she was. I know, she really is. Can you tell me a little bit about when you first read this book? She won the prize for half the yellow son, but I chose Americana. Actually, it was a bit of a toss-up because I think half of the Yellow Sun is probably her best book in terms of like, as a literary masterpiece. I just think it's sublime.

But Americana was the one that just got to me on such a deep level that when it was finished, I was in mourning. I'm not exaggerating. I was like, I can't lose this world. This is my world. It's the book I kind of felt like I could have written myself if I was a better author, you know, because there's so many things about it that I relate to. And to read it written by her is such a joy because she is a master. She is such an amazing storyteller.

She just reels you in with so much detail and texture and emotion. And I just felt like I knew these characters, you know, and it's a story that I don't think I'd read before. I don't think I'd read a story about West African characters who become part of that diaspora, you know, that whole migration to Europe and America, the experience in her case of being at like an elite education institution, in his case, at being like a low wage worker. the ways in which class and race play out when you move from Africa to the diaspora and then the experience of going back. And it was around the time that I had moved back to Ghana. I say back to Ghana. I never actually lived in Ghana before.

But, you know, it's like a spiritual return. We call it the return. Yeah, it's the motherland. And I really was living in Ghana for that reason that I really wanted to try and kind of break the, I wanted to try and fix the broken link in my heritage and return to the place that my ancestors are from and I wanted to just learn to navigate it and be part of it and contribute to it. And her book, Americana, came out at a time when I think a lot of people were beginning a kind of new wave of return. It's still happening now, you know, just had the

year of returning Ghana last year. And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a repeating cycle. But Americana was just really documented that moment in time for me in a way that was very personal. And she's also just a phenomenon as a human being as well as as an author. I just, I love to watch her and listen to her and follow her. And, you know, her nonfiction, her essays, her novels, everything she does is genius. So that Americana is my book. It's definitely one of my books for all time. Okay, so we're going to take you, unfortunately, from the sunny shores of Ghana

to back to the UK talking about the race report and the letter that you signed asking Boris Johnson to withdraw it. Can you tell us a little bit about, I mean, I say can you tell us a bit about why as if it's not clear, but can you tell us about how that came about

and why you wanted to speak out against the report's findings on structural racism? It just beggars belief that in 2021 our government is weaponising black British people in an attempt. to dehumanize our community, deny our experience, and gaslight the entire intellectual framework, decades, centuries of research on structural racism and just say it doesn't exist. It's just so remarkable.

And I think in a way I was actually relieved by this report because I already knew that this government was interested in trying to deny racism and that they were trying to try. to deploy this divide and rule strategy by picking off the few black people they could find who were willing to say that racism didn't exist and they're really happy being part of a racist system structured by white supremacy and then use those people to try and attack the rest of us. So I already knew that was their playbook. But in a way it was a relief because they produced a report that was just so completely devoid in credibility that it actually exposed them to a way.

everyone, you know, and I don't mean just in Britain, but internationally. I think we're at a time when most countries, most democracies, most former colonial powers, most people with significant minority populations are moving towards actually attempting to understand better and document and measure structural injustice. That's the trend. Thank God. And we're still so far from where we need to be, but I feel like we've at least started in the right direction, especially since the murder of George Floyd, which, you know, it still hurts so much that it took his death to snap so many people out of their complacency, but the reality is that it did. And then here we have our government saying, it's fine, because we've sold it because

we've decided it doesn't exist and never did. Oh, and by the way, the upside of slavery was it made people in the Caribbean more British. It couldn't be more insulting and offensive. And it would be funny if it wasn't so extremely serious. But I think it did backfire. It will continue to backfire. And I think it's helped people in Britain understand as well that there are black people who are willing accomplices in institutional racism that always have been and there always will be. And, you know, the idea that if you're black, you're incapable of doing anything that contributes to racism is clearly not a sophisticated idea, but this has been an excellent example in how that works. I just want to take it back to Garner quickly because, you know,

you've spoken at length about the identity crisis that you faced when you were growing up and how, you know, class but also, you know, mixed heritage, how that played into a sort of not even necessarily disconnect, but I suppose, yeah, as you put it yourself actually, an identity crisis in terms of where you fit within the black community. And I love how you talk about, you know, the motherland, the continent and how that helped resolve so much. And I just want to get into that a little bit more just how, you know, we always, as you said, we talk about going home and people feeling at home when they're home. And I just want to hear a little bit more about how it was that Ghana. And even Senegal helped, you know, sort of formulate an identity

that was yours. I mean, I'm lucky enough to have a Ghanaian mother who grew up in Ghana, at least for the first 11 years of her life. So it's very grounded in her heritage, her language, her history. And to have a, you know, a Ghanaian family in anyone, who knows Ghanaians knows it's a matrilineal society. So it's, which in my family's case translates as a bit of a matriarchy. So I've always had all these Ghanaian women in my life. And I think that when you grew up in Britain as a black person and you don't, it's not available to you how to navigate racism and the baggage around perceptions of blackness in this country, which also, as we know, has a long history. In a way, Ghana in the African continent to me

represented a different way of relating to my heritage where blackness was about joy, it was about culture, it was about history, it was about civilization, it was about literature and music, it was about all these things. Whereas I think for me growing up, the only conversation that I could access around blackness was about racism. And that's obviously a part of our experience that I'm the last person to downplay. But as black people, our blackness isn't just about oppression or racism. It's the content of our heritage and identities that we celebrate and love. So I wanted to get into that. I wanted to understand more about that content of my heritage and its history and its contours and it's, you know, all of it, which when you grow

up here, that's not accessible to you. We don't learn about it at school. It's not part of the media narrative about black people or especially not about Africa. I definitely grew up in the era of Africa, the hopeless continent of live aid and all these ideas about it being a place full of destitution and starvation and evil dictators and this complete single narrative that really caricatured the continent along very colonial lines, which is, I mean, still today is visible in the press and in the way charities fundraise and in all these things, which I and you and so many people have spoken out about over the years. But in a way, it's like I didn't want to centre the white gaze anymore on my identity. I wanted to just get to it directly.

So it made sense to me to live on the African continent. And I also think it's easy to talk about being pro-black and being Pan-African and all these things. But if you don't understand the African continent and you don't know how to contribute to its growth and its ability to emerge from the very devastating period of colonialism, then it's a bit meaningless. And I think, you know, we've had our intellectual revolutionaries from the independence era said this, that there is no future for black people anywhere unless the African continent can rise.

And so for me, I wanted to understand that better and also try and locate myself in it. So being at home in African countries was really, really important to me and it's probably a lifelong journey because it's a very big continent. And I've been working my way around it as much as best as I can.

But Ghana is the place that I just feel a kind of deep connection and ancestral connection. And I had to also overcome my own naive delusions that I could just go to Ghana and be very Ghanaian because obviously I've grown up here and I've had a very British conditioning in many ways, hence the title of my book. And so I had to kind of get past that and realize that it's not about me and it's not about being frustrated that Ghanaians didn't see me as more Ghanaian. It's more about just finding my own role and my own place and understanding what's going on there. So that's a journey, but it's a journey that I'm really enjoying, I have to say. Thank you so much, if you will. So your fourth book, Shelfy, is The Womp of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

Please tell me a bit about this book and the author. So I actually interviewed Isabel Wilkerson the last year, the end of last year, because of her new book cast. And she's just the most remarkable woman. She is so thorough, so diligent. so meticulous. She spends such a long time on her books. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. She was a journalist at the New York Times for many years. Her research is also driven by her own personal experience, and I related to this as well, because her parents were part of the Great Migration. And it's just a totally unput-downable book, which is hard to achieve for nonfiction and narrative nonfiction. And it's the story of different individuals who made that migration from, the South in America to Northern cities because they wanted to get away from Jim Crow and the legislative racism that characterized the South in that era. But until I read her book, I hadn't understood how huge a phenomenon the great migration was, how it totally changed

and shaped the character of America. When you go to America now, when you go to New York or you go to Chicago, you encountered the kind of black in a city, the black urban population, you know, all these words we're used to hearing about street culture and urban culture and the music and the films that we've all consumed, that was all created by the Great Migration. So many black people in the South moved to these cities and then they moved there on very, on very punitive terms. They had to live in substandard housing and pay more for it. They had to work multiple jobs to pay the extortionate rents they were being charged.

That meant they weren't able to supervise their children. And so it's a very human story that shows you how America has been structured in a way that deliberately penalizes black families and how the kind of like subclass, you know, the underclass, the black poor that we're so used to seeing and hearing about, how that was very deliberately created. It wasn't inevitable and it wasn't always like that. So I just found her book so profoundly educational. And I'm someone who tries to learn and understand these things, but I realize how much I didn't know when I read it. But also, it's just an incredible book to read

because she is a genius at telling true stories. The level of detail and the amount of insight she gets into people's lives is just unlike anything else. So I really, really recommend that book. And I always, always praise it whenever I get the chance. Thank you so much, Fu. Your fifth and final book shall be this week is YTogassoe by Jean-Rees. you have described this book as a masterpiece.

Please tell us why. I first read Widesugasso C when I was a teenager and it's basically the prequel to Jane Eyre. So if anyone's read Jane Eyre, the hero character, Mr. Rochester, has this mad wife in the attic, spoiler alert. And she is described as from the Caribbean and a Creole. And at the time I read this, like I said,

I never had any black characters in the books that I had access to. So I was really, excited by the fact that here in Jane Eyre, which is obviously like a very staple part of the canon in British and English literature, here's this like very central Caribbean character. So when I discovered that there was an entire book about her backstory, I was really excited and I immediately tried to get hold of widesciccicc. And I was really annoyed when I read it because basically she was white. And I was like, seriously, like this is the one time. You've got a character from the Caribbean and you've made her white and then you've made her the daughter of slave owners and it's all about how miserable she is because they lost their slaves and they lost their plantation. And wo is me. I was really, really unempathetic and really quite annoyed that this one chance I had a reading about a black character that turned out to be a white person. So that kind of probably tells you something about my mentality when I was 40. I reread that book again in my early 30s and I just couldn't believe how incredible it is.

it is, first of all, it's quite short, it's not a very long book. And I don't think there is a single word in that book that is not perfection. It is so beautifully crafted. Every sentence is just a work of art. And sometimes you just stop and have to read a sentence over and over again because you can't believe how gorgeous it is. She's an amazing writer and she took, I think it was about 30 years to write that book. It's not a long book.

She took so long to write it because she wanted it to be perfect. And she kind of deteriorated over the period she was writing it. She became an alcoholic. She became a recluse. And it was only when Diana Athill, her literary agent, discovered her kind of falling apart in this hovel somewhere with this manuscript that was all over the place. And Diana Athill, who was a really famous literary agent who passed away a couple of years ago, she read it and realized that this was a totally remarkable book.

And I think Gene Reese at that point had like 10 pages left to finish. And it took her nearly a decade to finish the last 10 pages. That's how much of a perfectionist she was. It's so incredible. You've got to read it. But also all of the kind of unempathetic responses I had to it as a teenager about how these were people who'd had slaves and, you know, I didn't really care about how they were doing was a very simplistic. and it's actually a really complicated story

about the legacy of slavery, about how people are racialized, about love, about how women are treated. And Jean Reese was herself a white person from the Caribbean who felt really out of place in Britain because she felt very Caribbean, but she was othered by white people because of her proximity to blackness,

but she in the Caribbean was a white person who had the baggage of being descended from people who'd owned slaves. So she occupied that precarious. place and her own identity. And I, I suppose I've become more compassionate over the years and more intellectually curious about people like her and, and more appreciative of stories that don't get told. And that for me was a story that I really hadn't been familiar with. And I think it's fascinating and a really beautiful book. Before we finish, I just want to talk to you a little bit about children's

books, because your book equals to everything, Judge Brenda and the Supreme Court, obviously that's hugely important as much as we talk about, you know, alongside diversity in terms of racial diversity in children's books. Of course, you know, having strong female characters and leads, you know, ensuring that children are aware of like the women's contributions in history. That's also hugely important. And I'm interested in, I suppose, the different approaches that you've taken going from writing about, I mean, I suppose even in a children's book, you're still, you know, ensuring that you're speaking truth to power. and like, you know, it's quite an empowering sort of book.

But going from writing, I suppose, you know, research heavy books and books that are, you know, quite hard hitting, I suppose, in their content to children's books and how I suppose you can even draw on themes that are, again, quite adult and, you know, write that for kids in terms of, you know, the Supreme Court. So I'm interested in the differing processes for you between kids and adults. Thank you for asking that. It's such a good question.

I think I pride myself on someone who takes, quite inaccessible ideas and makes them easy for anyone to understand. And that's something that I really had to hone when I was at The Guardian because I was the legal correspondent for the Guardian and I'd come from being a practising barrister. And I understood and was interested in like the really complicated nuance of legal cases and the constitution and litigation and all of that. And my job was to make it so that any person reading the newspaper could understand it.

And that was really hard. And in a way, the more you know about something, the harder that is because the more you can get into all the detail. So it takes a lot of discipline and I think kind of intuition to be able to simplify it and then to make it entertaining and compelling on top of that is like a whole other challenge. And it is really hard, but it's something that I've always enjoyed challenging myself to do. So in a way this was part of that. And I had actually done a lot of research for that book because I'd interviewed Brenda Hale for the magazine prospect.

And I'd because, you know, when my legal journalism kicks, in, I'm just such a geek. I read every single judgment that she'd done in the Supreme Court. I've read all of the books that she'd authored, the chapters that she'd written, the things that she'd edited. I just, every big speech that she'd given, I'd just done so much research on her. And that was really important because it allowed me to pick out some, even like one of the cases in that book is quite obscure, but I had to find cases that I knew would resonate with children. So for example, my daughter who's nine, I asked her feedback on the first draft, and she basically had two bits of feedback. She was like, Mommy, it's not funny enough. And also there's no we or poo in it. So that's not okay.

So I was like, aha. There was this really important judgment that she gave, which was about incontinence. And I was like, this is the one. So having that breadth of knowledge about her cases actually came in really handy. but I've got like the best editor in the world because my daughter reads a lot and has really strong opinions and loves criticising me. So that comes in handy. And I will write more children's books because it feels like, you know, such a gift to have this expertise in the house that I should really use it. I love that. That kid is going places. Like, honestly, brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much. We've sadly won out of time. Thank you. My last question, which is if you had to pick, one book, which would it be? And why? Oh, of the five. Of the five, I know, save the worst

to last. Can't do that to me. I'm so sorry. Hmm, that's really hard. I think it would probably have to be Son of Solomon because it's like, it was my first, it was my first proper book love. So, you know, your first love always has a special place in your heart. I'm Yomiyadh, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Head to our website wwwwomenpricionsforfiction.com.com. Where you can discover this year's shortlist of six incredible books. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time. This year's International Women's Podcast Awards are taking place on Thursday the 29th

of September at the Conduit London and via a global live stream. Deborah Francis White from the Guilty Feminist will be hosting the evening and we cannot wait to celebrate podcasters from all over the world who've created exceptional moments of audio brilliance. Tickets are available now, so to grab one and to find out more about the Amazon Music and Wondery Awards Fund, head to our website at skydarkcollective.co.com.