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Sugar and Slate

Sugar and Slate

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

A powerful, intimate memoir from writer and academic Charlotte Williams exploring the intertwined history of Wales, Africa and the Caribbean


As the daughter of a white Welsh-speaking mother and black father from Guyana, Charlotte Williams's childhood world was one of mixed messages dominated by the feeling that 'somehow to be half-Welsh and half Afro-Caribbean was to be half of something but never quite anything whole at all.'

Sugar and Slate tells the fascinating story of her journey of self-discovery, from the small north Wales town of her birth to Africa, the Caribbean and back to Wales. This is both a personal memoir and a story that speaks to the wider experience of mixed-race Britons. It is a story of Welshness and a story of Wales and above all a story for those of us who look over our shoulder across the sea to some other place.

A title in the Black Britain: Writing Back series - selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books depicting black Britain that remap the nation.

©2023 Charlotte Williams (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story
    Gary Younge, Guardian

About the author

Charlotte Williams

Charlotte Williams OBE is a Welsh-Guyanese award-winning author, academic and cultural critic. Her writings span academic publications, memoir, short fiction, reviews, essays and commentaries. She is Emerita Professor at Bangor University and a member of the Learned Society of Wales. Her writings have taken her on travels worldwide but her heart and her home are always in Wales.
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