Where Are You From? No, Where are You Really From?

The power is in the gentle, almost lyrically intimate force of the tale and its many messages, so courageously put, with generosity. Timely, affecting, and so darn necessary at this moment. Thank you, Audrey Osler, I say>

Préface
A story of migration, identity and belonging, drawing on the stories of people from Audrey Osler's mixed-heritage family, over three centuries.

Auteur
Audrey Osler is Professor Emerita of Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds. She Is widely known for her research on teachers' lives and careers, children's rights, and racial justice, and has worked as an educator in many countries, predominantly in Europe, East Asia and North America. She has acted as an expert advisor to the Council of Europe, UNESCO and a range of national governments. Her books have been translated into many languages, including Japanese and Chinese.

Texte du rabat

'Part personal family history and part history of the British Empire... Osler is unflinching in her examination... [but her] story is often a hopeful and happy one, including people who crossed boundaries, refused to be cowed by racism and married for love' Geographical

For people of colour the questions, Where are you from? No, where are you really from? often imply more than simple curiosity. They are political questions of identity, since the assumption (naive or aggressive) is that to be British and to belong you must be white.

Says Audrey Osler: 'The British Empire frames and shapes my family's history. Whether born in Britain, like me or my father, or in some other distant British territory, like my mother, we all continue to experience the legacy of this same empire and the impact of its ambitions, politics, and economics. My family story, back to the eighteenth century, across every generation, is one of migration in different directions, over four centuries, journeys prompted by war, study, a global economic crisis, a fresh start, love, and even child abduction. The stories I tell here reveal as much about Britain as they do about the countries of the British Empire. This is not just my history, it elucidates the largely untold history of a nation and of its citizens, both people of colour and white.'

'The power is in the gentle, almost lyrically intimate force of the tale and its many messages, so courageously put, with generosity' Philippe Sands