Sufferah: The Memoir of a Brixton Reggae-Head [Hardcover]

With more than 40 short chapters, the book brings readers along as artists such as Bob Marley, Sister Nancy, Dennis Brown, and others educate a young Black man about racial injustice and provide a lifeline when he felt at his lowest. Wheatle also finds family in his prison cellmate, who guides him toward a greater purpose, and he turns his life around using the music he loves and by tapping into his writing skills. The inspiration for Wheatle's fiction is apparent throughout his memoir, where he vividly and gracefully connects his own experiences to those of his characters. Novelist Wheatle (Brixton Rock) considers in this inspiring autobiography how reggae music helped him endure childhood abuse and connect with his heritage . . . His journey from orphan to self-possessed storyteller is by turns gripping and heartbreaking. Alex Wheatle writes from a place of honesty and passion, with the full knowledge and understanding that change can only happen through words and actions. Alex Wheatles Alex Wheatle's great mission is to make sufferahs visible and represent them in his art. With this insightful memoir, which mixes music with memory, he has done exactly that. Alex Wheatle's bracingly honest, at times excruciatingly evocative memoir is shaped by the poetics of reggae musicbut more than that, it is reggae music: brimming with all the pain and injustice that is baked into Babylon system, yet at the same time, by virtue of its artistic majesty, a beautiful transcendence of these things. This searing record of a writer's journey is that and more: A history of the reggae revolution in bass riddim. A raw account of racism in Britain. A prose that is Wheatle at his bestgritty, fast-paced, fierce, funny, restrained, a tightrope walker's balance. A crucial chapter in the story of Black lives. Its hard to put this book down. First of all, just to say, wowwhat a privilege to be invited into Alexs life in this way. This book is an intimate glimpse into a life fulllcŒ