Decolonising My Body

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Brought to you by Penguin.

How do we determine what is beautiful? Whose standards are we trying to meet when we spend our hard-earned money on our haircare, skincare and makeup; where do they come from, and how can we learn to undo them?

Upon getting her first tattoo at 40 years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and ageing she - and many of us - absorbed while growing up. Informed by research from around the world, Afua will look at how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped away from us. Through personal anecdotes, interviews from beauty experts, practitioners and service users, she explores the global history of skin, hair and body modification rituals. These insights and discoveries will empower readers to reconnect with their cultures of origin, better understand the link between beauty and politics, and liberate themselves from mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them.

©2023 Afua Hirsch (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Exceptionally rich, inspiring, challenging, wise and moving. I didn't realise I needed this book until I read it and felt stirrings towards my own ancestral awakening of African female cultural beliefs and practices that were sadly long ago lost to the colonial project. This is a ground-breaking book that speaks to all women.
Bernardine Evaristo, author of 'Girl, Woman, Other'
Weu2019re talking a lot about identity and race and politics, but also about the impact of colonialism on body image, and itu2019s just something that I had never considered before. I felt like I was learning a lot in reading her book u2026 Celebrates women how they are, as they are.
Gillian Anderson
I would wholeheartedly recommend Decolonising My Body by Afua Hirsch. It is a very brave and honest exploration, almost and excavation of Eurocentric standards of beauty and perceptions of body, particularly of the female body. It is also a calm and wise call of an awakening, a friendly u2013 or sisterly u2013 invitation to a transformative journey beyond these mental walls that have been erected around and between us by capitalism and patriarchy and colonialism. I found it both universal and timely
The New Statesman Books of the Year 2023
There's something on every page of this book that you didn't know before, or makes you look at things a new. An important publication.
Sathnam Sanghera, author of 'Stolen History' and 'Empireland'
Disarmingly honest... quietly radical
Evening Standard
A remarkable journey to unlearn western beauty standards and explore ancestral skin, hair and body modification rituals.
Observer
Decolonising my Body is both a generous offering, and a joy filled testimony. Afua skilfully pulls us into her world, and generously allows us to accompany her on a journey of questioning and unpacking notions of beauty. This exploration lights a path for all people who seek to (re)connect with more expansive understandings of beauty.
Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of 'The Sex Lives of African Women'
Afua has cut through so much of the noise to provide an enlightening and necessary reflection on how we can learn from the wisdom and beauty of our ancestors to become spiritually healthier humans. This book is a knowledge gift to us all.
Naomi Evans, author of 'The Mixed Race Experience', co-Founder of Everyday Racism
The journalist, commentator and author of Brit(ish) reflects on twelve months radical unlearning of Eurocentric and patriarchal conventions of beauty in this powerful and challenging volume.
Waterstones, 'Best Books of 2023: Politics'
Afua Hirschu2019s Decolonising My Body is a breath of fresh air and is a travel book, a beauty book, and a history book all in one. It made me think about capitalism and race and the body in a new way
New Statesman

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