Back to home page - News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

not-for-profit - a workers'co-op - committed to social justice | 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY - 0151 708 7270

Black, Asian and Middle Eastern Biography and Autobiography - Recently published biographies. (To keep this list from getting too long, we remove older titles from it every so often - but you'll still find them in other booklists according to their subject)

Related category: Black, Asian & Other Diasporas
Related booklists: Black American Women, Biography and Autobiography, Women's Biography and Autobiography, Asian Women, Black Women, Black and Asian Lives: Books for Children and Young Adults, Paul Robeson,

This website can't tell you if a book is in our shop right now or not. Most books can be ordered within 7-10 days, subject to availability. You can always call us or use the enquiry links to ask if a book is in stock or how long it would take to order. (Note: we do our best to keep information up to date, but occasionally prices may have changed.)

Books are listed in order of year of publication - newest titles are at the top. There are 43 books in this booklist

  • Cover image of book Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China by Noo Saro-Wiwa
    Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China - by Noo Saro-Wiwa

    £14.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781838856946 | ISBN 10: 1838856943

    The travel memoir of a Nigerian woman in China exploring the intersections and divides between the two cultures and the lives of African economic migrants in the bustling People’s Republic.  China today is a land of opportunity for African ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book What Are You Doing Here? My Autobiography by Floella Benjamin
    What Are You Doing Here? My Autobiography - by Floella Benjamin

    £10.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781529071061 | ISBN 10: 1529071062

    Winner at the 2022 Parlimentary Book Awards   Baroness Floella Benjamin is an inspiration, an actress and much-loved children’s television presenter who is a member of the House of Lords. But how did the girl from Trinidad end up lunching with t ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Blackgirl on Mars by Lesley-Ann Brown
    Blackgirl on Mars - by Lesley-Ann Brown

    £10.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781914420283 | ISBN 10: 1914420284

    Blackgirl on Mars is a radical memoir that chronicles author, educator and activist Lesley-Ann Brown’s two years’ worth of travel searching for “home”.  “Lesley-Ann Brown has a brave voice and a keen eye, offering an unflinching vie ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Rising to the Surface by Lenny Henry
    Rising to the Surface - by Lenny Henry

    £9.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9780571368792 | ISBN 10: 0571368794

    The rise and fall and triumphant rise from the ashes of Lenny Henry during the 80s and 90s.  ‘Moving and ebullient’ Daily Telegraph ‘Relayed with characteristic exuberance and self-deprecation’ Guardian  Rising to the Surface tra ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Cultural Icon by Helen Rappaport
    In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Cultural Icon - by Helen Rappaport

    £10.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781398504455 | ISBN 10: 1398504459

    'An astonishingly rich story... wonderfully informative' The Times 'Rappaport does a terrific job of bringing respectful rigour to her account of Seacole's extraordinary life' Daily Mail  In Search of Mary Seacole is a superb and revealing bio ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book An Autobiography by Angela Y. Davis
    An Autobiography - by Angela Y. Davis

    £10.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9780241994573 | ISBN 10: 0241994578

    A powerful and commanding account of the life of trailblazing political activist Angela Davis.  Edited by Toni Morrison and first published in 1974, An Autobiography is a classic of the Black Liberation era which resonates just as powerfully toda ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Time Come: Selected Prose by Linton Kwesi Johnson
    Time Come: Selected Prose - by Linton Kwesi Johnson

    £20.00   hardback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781035006328 | ISBN 10: 1035006324

    'Key to understanding black British history' - Sunday Times 'Sharp and still relevant' - Zadie Smith 'A mosaic of wise, urgent and moving pieces' - Kit de Waal   Recognized as one of the great poets of modern times, and as a deeply respect ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Different Voices Shared Lives: A Collection of New Writing from Voices Across Liverpool City Region by Various authors
    Different Voices Shared Lives: A Collection of New Writing from Voices Across Liverpool City Region - by Various authors

    £3.99   paperback   (2023) - ISBN 13: 9781910580851 | ISBN 10: 1910580856

    Different Voices Shared Lives is a unique collection of writing by members of black, Asian and other racial minority communities from across the Liverpool City Region which offers new insights into the region’s culture and heritage. This book bring ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Assassination of Lumumba by Ludo De Witte
    The Assassination of Lumumba - by Ludo De Witte

    £14.99   paperback   (2022) - ISBN 13: 9781839767906 | ISBN 10: 1839767901

    Re-issue of a classic investigation into the CIA and Belgian state plot in the Congo. The Assassination of Lumumba unravels the appalling mass of lies, hypocrisy and betrayals that have surrounded accounts of the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumu ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Identity in Britain by Helena Lee (Editor)
    East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Identity in Britain - by Helena Lee (Editor)

    £9.99   paperback   (2022) - ISBN 13: 9781529344509 | ISBN 10: 1529344506

    In this bold, first-of-its kind collection, East Side Voices invites us to explore a dazzling spectrum of experience from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora living in Britain today.   Showcasing original essays and poetry from well-known celeb ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo
    Manifesto: On Never Giving Up - by Bernardine Evaristo

    £9.99   paperback   (2022) - ISBN 13: 9780241993620 | ISBN 10: 0241993628

    The powerful, urgent manifesto on never giving up from Booker prize-winning trailblazer, Bernardine Evaristo.  In 2019, Bernardine Evaristo became the first black woman to win the Booker Prize since its inception fifty years earlier - a revolutio ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book His Name Is George Floyd: One Man
    His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice - by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

    £20.00   hardback   (2022) - ISBN 13: 9781787635838 | ISBN 10: 178763583x

    'His Name Is George Floyd is essential for our times.' Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist  'An intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life...brilliantly revealing.' NEW YORK TIMES  You know how he died. This is how ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh
    Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture - by Sudhir Hazareesingh

    £10.99   paperback   (2021) - ISBN 13: 9780141985060 | ISBN 10: 0141985062

    The definitive modern biography of the great slave leader, military genius and revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture.  The Haitian Revolution began in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in August 1791, and culmina ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Coconut by Florence Olajide
    Coconut - by Florence Olajide

    £8.99   paperback   (2021) - ISBN 13: 9781909770652 | ISBN 10: 1909770655

    'Why am I not white like everybody else?' Nan came and sat on the edge of my bed. 'What do you mean?' A tender finger brushed against my cheek. 'Well, everyone in this house is white. Why am I Black?'   A generation of Nigerian children were ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies by Sathnam Sanghera
    The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies - by Sathnam Sanghera

    £10.99   paperback   (2021) - ISBN 13: 9780141028590 | ISBN 10: 0141028599

    "It's 1979, I'm three years old, and like all breakfast times during my youth it begins with Mum combing my hair, a ritual for which I have to sit down on the second-hand, floral-patterned settee, and lean forward, like I'm presenting myself for exec ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Becoming by Michelle Obama
    Becoming - by Michelle Obama

    £12.99   paperback   (2021) - ISBN 13: 9780241982976 | ISBN 10: 0241982979

    Now in paperback featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a 5-question Q&A, an intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First La ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation by Colin Grant
    Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation - by Colin Grant

    £9.99   paperback   (2020) - ISBN 13: 9781784709136 | ISBN 10: 1784709131

    When Colin Grant was growing up in Luton in the 1960s, he learned not to ask his Jamaican parents why they had emigrated to Britain. ‘We’re here because we’re here,’ his father would say. ‘You have some place else to go?’  But now, se ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment by Amelia Gentleman
    The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment - by Amelia Gentleman

    £10.99   paperback   (2020) - ISBN 13: 9781783351855 | ISBN 10: 1783351853

    ***LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2019***  How do you pack for a one-way journey back to a country you left when you were eleven and have not visited for fifty years?  Amelia Gentleman's expose of the Windrush scandal shocked th ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Afropean: Notes from Black Europe by Johny Pitts
    Afropean: Notes from Black Europe - by Johny Pitts

    £10.99   paperback   (2020) - ISBN 13: 9780141987286 | ISBN 10: 0141987286

    A Guardian Best Book of 2019 so far.  'Afropean. Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity ... A continent of Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German Reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was pa ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Colour Of Madness Anthology: Exploring BAME Mental Health in the UK by Samara Linton and Rianna Walcott (Editors)
    The Colour Of Madness Anthology: Exploring BAME Mental Health in the UK - by Samara Linton and Rianna Walcott (Editors)

    £9.99   paperback   (2018) - ISBN 13: 9780992651442 | ISBN 10: 0992651441

    The Colour of Madness is a seminal anthology, comprised of poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs and art submitted by Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) writers, academics, mental health workers, artists and those who are still navigating life with me ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin
    Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin - by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

    £12.99   paperback   (2017) - ISBN 13: 9781909762572 | ISBN 10: 1909762571

    On February 26th 2012 seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was walking home with a bag of Skittles and a can of juice when a fatal encounter with a gun-wielding neighbourhood watchman ended his young life. In a matter of weeks, Trayvon Martin’s name w ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Ida B. Wells: Social Activist and Reformer by Kristina DuRocher
    Ida B. Wells: Social Activist and Reformer - by Kristina DuRocher

    £24.99   paperback   (2016) - ISBN 13: 9781138786882 | ISBN 10: 1138786888

    Born into slavery in 1862, Ida B. Wells went on to become an influential reformer and leader in the African American community. A Southern black woman living in a time when little social power was available to people of her race or gender, Ida B. Wel ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
    Negroland: A Memoir - by Margo Jefferson

    £12.99   paperback   (2016) - ISBN 13: 9781783783021 | ISBN 10: 1783783028

    The daughter of a successful paediatrician and a fashionable socialite, Margo Jefferson spent her childhood among Chicago's black elite. She calls this society 'Negroland': 'a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar by Reinhard Kleist
    An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar - by Reinhard Kleist

    £14.99   paperback   (2016) - ISBN 13: 9781910593097 | ISBN 10: 1910593095

    The remarkable story of Somali Olympian Samia Yusuf Omar.   In 2008, 17-year-old Samia Yusuf Omar stood alongside some of the fastest women in the world on the start line of the Olympic 200m. Four years later, she boarded a refugee boat to Eur ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir - by Ta-Nehisi Coates

    £9.99   paperback   (2016) - ISBN 13: 9781784785345 | ISBN 10: 1784785342

    The Beautiful Struggle is an extraordinary memoir from the most important new voice in the US race debate and the author of New York Times bestseller list no. 1 Between the World and Me, hailed by Toni Morrison as required reading. This small a ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary by Gerald Horne
    Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary - by Gerald Horne

    £12.99   paperback   (2016) - ISBN 13: 9780745335322 | ISBN 10: 0745335322

    A world-famous singer and actor, a trained lawyer, an early star of American professional football and a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages. These could be the crowning achievements of a life well-lived, yet for Paul Robeson the higher calling ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art by Phoebe Hoban
    Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art - by Phoebe Hoban

    £15.00   paperback   (2015) - ISBN 13: 9780704374041 | ISBN 10: 0704374048

    Jean-Michel Basquiat grew up as the son of an accountant and spent his youth as a graffiti artist. Before he knew it, the young Basquiat had been catapulted to the heights of fame because of his blackness, good looks and lack of formal art training, ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War by Ray Costello
    Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War - by Ray Costello

    £14.99   paperback   (2015) - ISBN 13: 9781781380192 | ISBN 10: 1781380198

    Black Tommies is the first book entirely dedicated to the part played by soldiers of African descent in the British regular army during the First World War. If African colonial troops have been ignored by historians, the existence of any substantial ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Cugoano Against Slavery by Martin Hoyles
    Cugoano Against Slavery - by Martin Hoyles

    £9.99   paperback   (2015) - ISBN 13: 9781906190972 | ISBN 10: 1906190976

    Out of the three leading black figures in eighteenth-century England (Sancho, Equiano and Cugoano), Ottobah Cugoano is the least well known. Yet he was the most radical, campaigning not just against the slave trade but for a total abolition of slave ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Just Your Average Muslim by Zia Chaudhry
    Just Your Average Muslim - by Zia Chaudhry

    £8.99   paperback   (2015) - ISBN 13: 9781780722481 | ISBN 10: 1780722486

    This fascinating and original book provides a better insight into the life of "just your average Muslim" than you will find anywhere else.  A powerful antidote to common but exhausted stereotypes, it challenges non-Muslims to reexamine their per ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book A Passion for Freedom: My Life by Mamphela Ramphele
    A Passion for Freedom: My Life - by Mamphela Ramphele

    £14.99   paperback   (2014) - ISBN 13: 9781784530426 | ISBN 10: 1784530425

    Mamphela Ramphele is a figurehead of modern South Africa. The partner of Steve Biko, until his death in 1977, she has demonstrated extraordinary political leadership and statesmanship, most recently as the leader of the Agang SA party.   In t ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe
    There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra - by Chinua Achebe

    £9.99   paperback   (2013) - ISBN 13: 9780241959206 | ISBN 10: 0241959209

    Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, is a writer whose moral courage and storytelling gifts have left an enduring stamp on world literature. There Was a Country is his long-awaited account of coming of age during the defining experience of ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Paul Robeson: A Watched Man by Jordan Goodman
    Paul Robeson: A Watched Man - by Jordan Goodman

    £20.00   hardback   (2013) - ISBN 13: 9781781681312 | ISBN 10: 1781681317

    In his heyday, Paul Robeson was one of the most famous people in the world; to his enemies he was also one of the most dangerous. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the African-American singer was the voice of the people, both as a performer and as a polit ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race & Defiance by Harry Belafonte and Michael Schnayerson
    My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race & Defiance - by Harry Belafonte and Michael Schnayerson

    £14.99   paperback   (2012) - ISBN 13: 9780857865861 | ISBN 10: 0857865862

    Written with Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Schnayerson, My Song is an inspiring story of performance and protest, from a superstar singer and actor who was on the front lines of practically every progressive political battle in modern memor ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
    The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - by Rebecca Skloot

    £9.99   paperback   (2011) - ISBN 13: 9780330533447 | ISBN 10: 0330533444

    The internationally bestselling story of a young woman whose death in 1951 changed medical science for ever... Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without h ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation by Xinran
    China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation - by Xinran

    £12.99   paperback   (2009) - ISBN 13: 9780099501480 | ISBN 10: 0099501481

    China Witness is the personal testimony of a generation whose stories have not yet been told. Here the grandparents and great-grandparents of today sum up in their own words for the first and perhaps the last time the vast changes that have overt ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Pilgrim State by Jacqueline Walker
    Pilgrim State - by Jacqueline Walker

    £9.99   paperback   (2009) - ISBN 13: 9780340960806 | ISBN 10: 0340960809

    Pilgrim State is a stunning memoir which tells the story of Dorothy Walker - equal parts beautiful, headstrong, brave and tragic. Her life is lovingly recreated by her daughter Jacqueline in homage to the remarkable woman she was. In the haunt ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Hand Me My Travelin
    Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell - by Michael Gray

    £14.99   paperback   (2008) - ISBN 13: 9780747565611 | ISBN 10: 0747565619

    "No one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell."(Bob Dylan) The great pre-war blues musician Blind Willie McTell was one of the most gifted artists of his generation, with an exquisite voice and a sublime talen for the 12-string guitar. Yet h ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance - by Barack Obama

    £9.99   paperback   (2008) - ISBN 13: 9781847670946 | ISBN 10: 1847670946

    In this memoir written at the age of 33, Barack Obama, son of a black African father and a white American mother, describes the search for meaning in his life as a black American. He begins in New York where he learns that his father, more a myth th ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary 1946-1968 by Nelson Peary
    Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary 1946-1968 - by Nelson Peary

    £21.99   hardback   (2007) - ISBN 13: 9781595581457 | ISBN 10: 1595581456

    Black Fire, the celebrated first volume of Nelson Peerys riveting autobiography, told the story of his childhood and teenage years during the Depression and his subsequent political awakening as a soldier in the all-black 93rd Infantry Division in W ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
    The Autobiography of Malcolm X - by Malcolm X

    £10.99   paperback   (2007) - ISBN 13: 9780141032726 | ISBN 10: 0141032723

    Malcolm X's blazing, legendary auto-biography, completed shortly before his assassination in 1965, depicts a remarkable life: a child born into rage and despair, who turned to street-hustling and cocaine in the Harlem ghetto, followed by prison, wher ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book My Ear At His Heart: Reading My Father by Hanif Kureishi
    My Ear At His Heart: Reading My Father - by Hanif Kureishi

    £7.99   paperback   (2005) - ISBN 13: 9780571224043 | ISBN 10: 0571224040

    Hanif Kureishi offers a remarkable insight into the birth of a writer - himself - through this memoir that conjures up a family story of how he found his own literary calling from the ashes of his father's attempts to be a writer. The wellspring of ... more

    View book details    
  • Cover image of book Honey, Honey, Miss Thang: Being Black, Gay, and on the Streets by Leon E. Pettiway
    Honey, Honey, Miss Thang: Being Black, Gay, and on the Streets - by Leon E. Pettiway

    £26.99   paperback   (1996) - ISBN 13: 9781566394987 | ISBN 10: 1566394988

    Many straight Americans would never embrace homosexuals as neighbors, co-workers, or friends. Still less would they accept as equals those transgendered individuals who work the streets to provide themselves with drug money.   This book seeks ... more

    View book details    

© News From Nowhere Co-operative Ltd IP24524R 2004-2024 | Privacy policy | Contact | return to top of page