Additional information
by Afua Hirsch (Author)
A 2023 POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR (WATERSTONES) 'GROUND-BREAKING' Bernardine Evaristo 'UNIVERSAL AND TIMELY' Elif Shafak 'IMPORTANT' Sathnam Sanghera 'A GENEROUS OFFERING' Nana Darkoa Sekiyamah 'QUIETLY RADICAL' Evening Standard 'INTIMATE' Guardian 'I LEARNT A LOT' Gillian Anderson
What can ancestral practices teach us about how to live fuller lives today?
Upon turning forty, Afua Hirsch had an encounter that forever altered her preconceived notions of ancestry and body image, making her question everything from body-modification rituals such as tattoos and piercings to the foundations of sexuality, as well as attitudes towards puberty, ageing and death. This book charts her year-long journey of radical unlearning. Bringing together global scholarship, on-the-ground reportage, personal anecdotes and interviews with beauty experts, practitioners and service users, she reassesses notions of body image beyond those of the colonial, patriarchal gaze.
These insights and discoveries will empower you to reconnect with your own ancestry, better understand the link between beauty, history and (respectability) politics, and liberate yourself from mainstream standards and systems that aren't serving you.
*Co-host of the LOYALTY podcast with Peter Frankopan*
Author Biography
Afua Hirsch is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She is the author of Brit(ish), the Sunday Times bestseller that explores Britishness, identity and belonging, for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. She co-presented Enslaved, a 6-part series about the transatlantic slave trade with Samuel L Jackson. She is the presenter of the Audible podcast series We Need To Talk About the British Empire, and Africa Rising, an ongoing flagship series about art and culture for the BBC, through her production company Born in Me Productions. She is a longtime columnist for the Guardian and is a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.
