Gary Younge – Dispatches from the Diaspora

We are thrilled that Gary Younge will be joining us in the bookshop to discuss his brand new collection of journalism, Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter. His work as a broadcaster, journalist and academic has received much acclaim and this book is a collection of his work, spanning his entire career. Gary will be in conversation with Lisa Williams, founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association.

This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.

In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of Dispatches from the Diaspora – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on the website against a single copy of Dispatches from the Diaspora. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book.

About Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter:

Dispatches from the Diaspora is a powerful, career-spanning collection of Gary's journalism on race, racism and Black life and death from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States.

For the last three decades, Gary Younge has had a ringside seat during the biggest events and with the most significant personalities to impact the Black diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama’s victory or entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina. We see him get drunk with Maya Angelou in her limousine, discuss politics with Stormzy on his couch and witness Archbishop Desmond Tutu almost fall asleep mid-interview. He has seen how much change is possible and the power of systems to thwart those aspirations.

In a rich mix of reportage, memoir and polemic, among other thought-provoking pieces, Gary asks readers to contemplate what a White History Month might look like and argues that all statues of historical figures, from Rosa Parks to Cecil Rhodes, should be taken down.

Dispatches from the Diaspora is an unrivalled body of work from a unique perspective that takes you to the frontlines and compels you to engage and to ‘imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.’

Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. Formerly a columnist and an editor-at-large at the Guardian, he is an editorial board member of The Nation magazine. He is the author of five books, including Another Day in the Death of America (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Jhalak Prize); his writing has appeared in Granta, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the New Statesman and beyond, and he has made several radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit. He lives in London.

Lisa Williams is the founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association and curates education programmes, arts events and walking tours to promote the shared heritage between Scotland and the Caribbean. She is a PhD candidate in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews and an Honorary Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. She works as a consultant to heritage organisations across Scotland.  

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