Colin Grant

Colin Grant is an English historian and son of black Jamaican immigrants who explores the legacy of slavery and its effect on modern generations of the African diaspora. In "Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey," Grant chronicles the life of the controversial Jamaican politician and his obsession with a "redeemed" Africa; in "I & I: The Natural Mystics, Marley, Tosh and Wailer" he explores the struggles faced by now legendary Rastafarian reggae artists the Wailers; and in, "Bageye at the Wheel," Grant confronts his own father in a memoir about his lifelong inner conflict with the immigrant experience.

His novel, "Homecoming," draws on over a hundred first-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. In their own words, we witness the transition from the optimism of the first post-war arrivals to the race riots of the late 1950s. "Homecoming" was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' and a Daily Telegraph 'Book of the Year.' Grant is releasing his memoir, "I'm Black So You Don't Have to Be," in January of 2023.

Grant is also an Associate Fellow in the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick, a producer for BBC Radio, and a contributing writer at The Gaurdian.