Alex Wheatle MBE was born in South London in 1963 and is an accomplished and award-winning author of more than a dozen books, including children's and young adult novels. The story of his teenage years was the basis of Steve McQueen's "Alex Wheatle" in the Small Axe series (December 2020), and he has written and performed a play about his life titled Uprising. His novels for adults include the Windrush classic Island Songs, as well as Brixton Rock, Brenton Brown, East of Acre Lane, and Home Boys. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio and film.
Not only an intimate and completely engaging memoir, but also an
essential piece of social history. Often heartbreaking but
frequently life-affirming too. Alex is a truly gifted storyteller,
and the way he details his own story here is no exception.
*Jeffrey Boakye*
This searing record of a writer's journey offers much more: A
history of the reggae revolution in bass riddim. A raw account of
racism in Britain. A prose that is Wheatle at his best-gritty,
fast-paced, salty, funny, restrained, a tightrope walker's balance.
For me, a Black writer in America, the part that resonates the most
is, it's the story of how we overcome. Once you start reading, it's
hard to put this book down.
*author of A TALL HISTORY OF SUGAR*
Alex Wheatle's Sufferah is a moving account of one writer's
indomitable will to overcome the odds stacked against him. A
tender, hilarious, and deeply felt memoir, the book places
Wheatle's experiences in foster care and incarceration within a
larger context of racism in the UK and dovetails with his coming of
age as a lover of reggae music and Jamaican culture. What a gift to
witness Wheatle's journey to find and forgive his birth family and
to make a life and family of his own
*author of THE STAR SIDE OF BIRD HILL*
Alex Wheatle's bracingly honest, at times excruciatingly evocative
memoir is shaped by the poetics of reggae music-but 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
*author of INCARCERATION NATIONS*
Inspiring . . . His journey from orphan to self-professed
storyteller is by turns gripping and heartbreaking
*Publishers Weekly*
Conversational and full of self-deprecating humour, Sufferah is a
potent tale of triumph over adversity. Angry but never bitter,
Wheatle's compassion shines through the pain
*Observer*
A personal memoir as well as a hosannah to the glory that is
Jamaican music . . . Sufferah, by turns witty, tragic and, yes,
righteous, is a gem
*Spectator*
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