Printed by Thread Books in February 2023, Alexis Keir’s Windward Household: An atlas of affection, loss and belonging explores the lives of people that, over generations, have travelled from Saint Vincent to England. The writer will ship a chat in regards to the guide and the way he got here to write down it on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, 18:30 – 20:00 (GMT) at Brixton Library (Brixton Oval London SW2 1JQ). Register for occasion right here.
E-book Description: From the Caribbean to Nice Britain, and from the nineteenth century to the current, Windward Household takes us contained in the beating coronary heart of a Black British household, exhibiting us how we turn into who we’re, and the way the seek for ourselves at all times leads us to the identical place – residence.
‘I had gaps to fill in my household’s historical past and their stunning island cradle. Distant voices had began calling to me and, as I booked my flights and packed my baggage, I ached to return to the place my mom and father had sailed from.’
Twenty years after dwelling there as a baby, Alexis Keir returns to the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. He’s eager to uncover misplaced recollections and rediscover outdated connections. However he additionally carries with him the childhood scars of being separated from his dad and mom and put into uncaring fingers. Impressed by the embrace of his family within the Caribbean, Alexis begins to unravel the tales of others who left Saint Vincent, looking out via diary pages and newspaper articles, transport and hospital information, and pale images. He uncovers tales of exploitation, endeavour and bravado of those that needed to discover a residence distant from the place they had been born. A baby born with vitiligo, torn from his mom’s arms to be exhibited as a showground attraction in England; a girl who, within the century earlier than the Windrush era, grew to become one of many earliest Black nurses to be recorded as working in a London hospital; the younger boy who grew to become a footman in a Yorkshire stately residence. And Alexis’s mom, a pupil nurse who arrives in Nineteen Sixties London, prepared to start out a brand new life in a chilly, gray nation – and the person from her island who she falls in love with.
Alexis Keir’s early life had been spent rising up in Luton. He spent a yr within the Caribbean as a baby and nonetheless returns there commonly. In 2019 he was chosen as a participant for the London Writers Award Programme run by Unfold the Phrase. He was additionally one of many 2021 cohorts of the London Library’s Rising Author’s Programme and, in the identical yr, was shortlisted for The Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize. That is his first guide.
To buy the guide, see https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/alexis-keir/windward-family/9781909770713/
Register for the occasion at https://nam02.safelinks.safety.outlook.com/