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The Colour of Home

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What to expect

'One of the best political memoirs I've read in years' The Times
'Gripping... enjoyable' Amol Rajan, BBC Today Programme
'Recalls the boisterous fiction of Hanif Kureishi' The Telegraph
'A remarkable story of resilience and ambition, brimming with love for his family' Sunday Times
'Striking, surprising, brutally honest' Rory Stewart
'Funny, addictive and moving' Andrew Marr

'Run, Paki, Run.'

The words ricocheted off the walls of the Rochdale underpass that connected Sajid Javid's home and primary school. Even as a five-year-old boy, he had learned that 70s Britain could be a cruel and violent place for those seen as outsiders.

Leaving behind the devastation of Partition, Sajid's father moved from Punjab to the UK in the 60s. The family held on to many of their Indo-Pakistani traditions, setting them apart and often leading to rejection by their new neighbours.

In this tender but powerful memoir, Sajid Javid shares his story of a childhood marked by poverty, racism and the tension produced by trying to conform to two cultures. These led to run-ins with the police, trouble at school and eventually the risk of estrangement from his family by defying their wish for his arranged marriage in favour of choosing the woman he loved . With each new trial, Sajid learned to dig his heels in further, speaking up for himself and stubbornly refusing to accept the limits that seemed imposed by his background.

Told with honesty, heart and humour, The Colour of Home charts Sajid's remarkable rise from adversity to the heart of British life. It is a story of hope, determination and survival - a tribute to the parents who gave everything and the brothers who struggled alongside him - and an invitation to every 'outsider' to keep going and dream big.

Critics Review

One of the best political memoirs I've read in years... His prose is endlessly evocative... Excellent
The Times
Gripping . . . enjoyable
BBC Today Programme
A remarkable story of resilience and ambition, brimming with love for his family
Sunday Times
An intimate, and sometimes moving, family portrait as well as a social history of race, class and aspiration in late 20th-century Britain
Guardian
Recalls the boisterous fiction of Hanif Kureishi... Javid displays in the book a vivid way of nailing down personality on the page and has an eye for the piquantly absurd
The Telegraph
Crammed with incident - arranged marriages, savage beatings, boys behaving badly. I never imagined it would make me blub
Guardian
Clear-eyed and surprisingly tender... Touching on poverty, alienation and ambition, it frames his rise not as triumphalism but as a message to outsiders to keep going
iNews
Javid's memoir should make all Britons proud... an absorbing saga of a migrant family's physical, mental and emotional passage, a touching love story, a riotous adventure about a British Pakistani boy from the margins who got to the very centre of political power, and a tale of redemption
The i Paper
This is a memoir unlike anything you will read from a politician. Sajid Javid tells his story with eloquence and wit
Alan Johnson
Striking, surprising, brutally honest - a powerful portrait of a remarkable man and historical change
Rory Stewart
A gripping and unique coming-of-age story which is both a slice of British history and a warning about what, if we are divided against ourselves again, could be be coming. Funny, addictive and moving
Andrew Marr
A startling memoir that screams with authenticity. Sajid was just another kid on the block, doing daily battle with his family's culture and this country's open hostility until he decided to break out of the box. When it doesn't leave you wriggling in outrage, it will drench you in tears and laughter. The finale is heart-wrenching
Michael Dobbs
An important and deeply moving story of one man's origins, and the Britain he has known
Mishal Husain
Inspirational... Javid writes powerfully about overcoming adversity
Observer
Author Sajid Javid
Narrator Sajid Javid
Duration 9 hours and 24 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781405565448
Format Audiobook
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Genre Memoirs
Availability AU, GB, IE

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