Sugar and Slate

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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

Critics Review

An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story
Guardian
Presenting a hidden but very real face of Britishness that feels esoteric yet relatable at the same time, Sugar and Slate is an amalgamation of education and entertainment personified
The Voice
A wonderful memoir-cum-polemic . . . it is the wit and sagacity that Williams brings to her anecdotes that makes her writing so greatly fulfilling
buzzmag
I loved this book . . . Williams pushes us to ask what 'Welsh' means, what Guyanese means, as much as her luminous words and intricate structure force a deeper understanding of 'classic'
Nation Cymru
In this moving and thought-provoking book, Charlotte Williams demonstrates how global histories impact our most intimate spaces and acts. Linking the histories of Africa, South America and rural Wales, it is an unforgettable account of a search for belonging and identity
S. I. Martin
u2018One of the most arresting memoirs Iu2019ve ever had the pleasure of reading . . . Charlotte Williams reveals lesser-known Welsh history alongside sharing an un-put-down-able account of her journey through dislocation and otherness to self-hood
LoveReading
An imaginative expansion of the autobiographical form
New Welsh Review
Charlotteu2019s observations and descriptions in Sugar and Slate are highly original and her writing nothing less than brilliant
Caribbean Review
A bona-fide classic . . . The booksu2019 relevance today is undimmed and undiminished . . . Sugar and Slate is animated by vivid glimpses of daily life and the wider culture of all of the places along Williamsu2019 life-route, with pulsing, bravura writing about dances in Georgetown
Nation Cymru
Charlotte Williams' thought-provoking and beautiful memoir Sugar and Slate comes back to the fore to retell an ever-pertinent tale of twentieth century multi-ethnic Britain
The Publishing Post

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