Decolonising My Body - by Afua Hirsch

About the Book

"Upon getting her first tattoo at 40 years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and ageing she - and many of us - absorbed while growing up. Informed by research from around the world, Afua examines at how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped away from us. Through personal anecdotes, interviews from beauty experts, practitioners and service users, she explores the global history of skin, hair and body modification rituals and how it has affected how we see ourselves. These insights and discoveries will empower readers to reconnect with their cultures of origin, better understand the link between beauty and politics, and liberate themselves from mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them ovided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

How do we determine what is beautiful? Whose standards are we trying to meet when we spend our hard-earned money on our haircare, skincare and makeup; where do they come from, and how can we learn to undo them?

Upon getting her first tattoo at 40 years old, award-winning journalist Afua Hirsch embarked on a journey to reclaim her body from the colonial ideas of purity, adornment and aging she - and many of us - absorbed while growing up. Informed by research from around the world, Afua will look at how individual and collective notions of what is beautiful are constructed or stripped away from us. Through personal anecdotes, interviews from beauty experts, practitioners and service users, she explores the global history of skin, hair and body modification rituals. These insights and discoveries will empower readers to reconnect with their cultures of origin, better understand the link between beauty and politics, and liberate themselves from mainstream beauty standards that aren't serving them.

About the Author

Afua Hirsch is a bestselling writer, journalist, presenter, professor and broadcaster. She is the author of Brit(ish), a Sunday Times bestselling Jonathan Cape publication that explores Britishness and identity, and their seismic social and political impact, for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. A former barrister, she has also worked in international development, and in addition to reporting on issues ranging from politics and policy, terrorism, the War in Mali, and Africa's tech revolution, she writes and speaks extensively about social issues around justice and identity around the world. She was the co-presenter of Samuel L. Jackson's major BBC TV series Enslaved in 2020. Afua is a columnist for the Guardian and appears regularly on the BBC, Sky News and CNN.