Book review: The Map of Me: True Tales of Mixed Heritage Experience

Published on Wednesday 31 December 2008 12:55

Various Authors Penguin, 200pp, £8.99 Review by MARION SAUVEBOIS

THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA should be good news for people of mixed heritage. In Britain, as this collection of true stories shows, there's still a long way to go.

In it, a recurring theme is the way in which people are forced to choose between cultures, apparently unable to merge both. Thus Rounke Coker depicts her life in Nigeria as the child of an English mother and a Nigerian father: she is too pale to be fully Nigerian. Moving to the UK she is shocked to discover that she is "black".

Rashid Adamson is unable to choose between his mother's British heritage and his father's Pakistani traditions.

Surprisingly, in at least three cases, lack of parental understanding is as much a problem as racial prejudice. Julia Bohanna describes her pride in being the daughter of an English father and an Indian mother. Yet her will to accentuate her Indian features is strongly opposed by her mother who wishes to fully anglicise herself.

For anyone expecting a dull collection of ploddingly predictable political correctness, the surprise is this book's sheer comic verve. Tina Freeth, born in China and adopted by "a 'typical' English family" is a case in point: if her writing is anything to go by, a career in stand-up surely awaits.