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

'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