What We Leave We Carry

'A beautiful tapestry… Uplifting' Bernardine Evaristo

What do we leave behind when we move to a new place – and what do we carry with us, physically and emotionally, wherever we land?

Here are the voices of people who have come to Britain to make a new life: a Czech-Roma lawyer in Reading, an Iranian taxi driver in Shropshire, a Sierra Leonean actor in Northampton, a Romanian police officer in Edinburgh.

Colin Grant has travelled the country and listened to their stories – foundational tales of arriving in a new land, along with rarely spoken stories of love and loss. Together, these accounts ask questions about assimilation, identity, belonging and the emotional cost of migration in twenty-first-century Britain.

Candid, profoundly human, sometimes funny and always moving, What We Leave We Carry is a chance to listen to Britain – in all its richness and complexity.

PRAISE FOR HOMECOMING by COLIN GRANT:

'Oral history at its finest' Daily Mail
'Prickles with beautiful, comic and brutal details' Observer
'An extraordinary and compelling book' Daily Telegraph
'Utterly fascinating' New Statesman
'A hopeful, angry, tear-jerking read' Grazia
'Essential reading' Guardian