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One of Them

Musa Okwonga – a young Black man who grew up in a predominantly working-class town – was not your typical Eton College student.

Publication date: 15 April, 2021
Status: Published
Book: Paperback
Regular price £8.99
Regular price £8.99Sale price £8.99

Description

Musa Okwonga – a young Black man who grew up in a predominantly working-class town – was not your typical Eton College student.

The experience moulded him, challenged him… but also made him wonder why a place that was so good for him also seems to contribute to the harm being done to the UK. The more he searched, the more evident the connection became between one of Britain’s most prestigious institutions and the genesis of Brexit, and between his home town in the suburbs of Greater London and the rise of the far right.

Woven throughout this deeply personal and unflinching memoir of Musa’s five years at Eton in the 1990s is a present-day narrative which engages with much wider questions about pressing social and political issues: privilege, the distribution of wealth, the rise of the far right in the UK, systemic racism, the ‘boys’ club’ of government and the power of the few to control the fate of the many. One of Them is both an intimate account and a timely exploration of race and class in modern Britain.

About the Author

Musa Okwonga

Musa Okwonga

is a poet, journalist, broadcaster, musician, social commentator, football writer and consultant in the fields of creativity and communications. He has written on identity, sport, culture and society for a range of publications including Africa Is a Country, The Economist, ESPN, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and The New York Times, for whom he wrote “Offsides”, their 2018 World Cup column on the intersection of football and politics. He has written and presented essays and programmes for BBC Radio Four and the BBC World Service, has lectured at several universities, and fans of his work include J.K. Rowling, Kate Tempest and Ed Sheeran. Musa was one of the contributors to the Unbound book The Good Immigrant. He is the co-host of the Stadio football podcast and is the author of two books on football, the first of which was nominated for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and the author of one collection of poetry. He lives and works in Berlin.

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