Black Gold of the Sun - Ekow Eshun

Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa
Ekow Eshun
Hamish Hamilton
£17.99

'Ekow Eshun's book comes in reaction to the pervasiveness of British racism, his brush with mental ill health - six times more prevalent among black people in Britain than in the white population - the respite he found in hard work and his resulting elevation to editor of Arena magazine, TV pundit and, most recently, artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He is part of a new and startlingly successful generation of black British personalities in the arts .... The deadpanning of identity may well be the cost for Eshun and McQueen's generation of fitting themselves into the frame of British institutional and cultural life, but both writer and artist appear to be tackling that danger head on. If this characterises a moment of change for black British artists and writers, it is very welcome ... Black Gold of the Sun has a lot to say about the history and experience of being black, particularly in relation to the Atlantic slave trade. The "black gold" of the title refers to slaves, and slavery is still, it seems, the bedrock of any consciousness of being black.'
The Guardian