Sequins for a Ragged Hem

  • Author Amryl Johnson
  • Narrator Bernardine Evaristo, Martina Laird
  • Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
  • Run Time 9 hours and 51 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Memoirs, Travel writing.
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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

A beautifully atmospheric memoir and travelogue from poet Amryl Johnson depicting her journey from the UK to Trinidad in the 1980s

'Memories demanded that I complete this book. If what I experienced was, in fact, a haunting, I believe I have now laid these ghosts to rest in a style which I hope will satisfy even the most determined ones.'

Amryl Johnson came to England from Trinidad when she was eleven. As an adult in 1983, ready for a homecoming, she embarks on a journey through the Caribbean searching for home, searching for herself.

Landing in Trinidad as carnival begins, she instantly surrenders to the collective, pulsating rhythm of the crowd, euphoric in her total freedom. This elation is shattered when she finds the house where she was born has been destroyed. She cannot escape - nor wants to - from the inheritance of colonialism.

Her bittersweet welcome sets the tone for her intoxicating exploration of these distinct islands. In evocative, lyrical prose Sequins for a Ragged Hem is an astonishingly unique memoir, interrogating the way our past and present selves live alongside one another.

Selected by Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, this series rediscovers and celebrates pioneering books from Black Britain and the diaspora, which remap the nation and reframe our history.

© Amryl Johnson 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

  • Sequins is a powerful and unusual book, in that it combines the familiar traveller’s tales with an account of another kind of journey and process of discovery, as Johnson confronts the ‘ghost who was haunting herself’ in order that she might come to terms with her sense of a fragmented identity

    Guardian

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