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Twenty in 2020
The Space between Black and White
Illuminating her inner journey growing up mixed-race in Britain, Esua Jane Goldsmith's unique memoir exposes the isolation and ambiguities that often come with being ‘an only’.
Raised in 1950s South London and Norfolk with a white, working-class family, Esua’s education in racial politics was immediate and personal. From Britain and Scandinavia to Italy and Tanzania, she tackled inequality wherever she saw it, establishing an inspiring legacy in the Women’s lib and Black Power movements.
Plagued by questions of her heritage and the inability to locate all pieces of herself, she embarks on a journey to Ghana to find the father who may have the answers.
A tale of love, comradeship, and identity crises, Esua’s rise to the first Black woman president of Leicester University Students’ Union and Queen Mother of her village, is inspiring, honest, and full of heart.
Raised in 1950s South London and Norfolk with a white, working-class family, Esua’s education in racial politics was immediate and personal. From Britain and Scandinavia to Italy and Tanzania, she tackled inequality wherever she saw it, establishing an inspiring legacy in the Women’s lib and Black Power movements.
Plagued by questions of her heritage and the inability to locate all pieces of herself, she embarks on a journey to Ghana to find the father who may have the answers.
A tale of love, comradeship, and identity crises, Esua’s rise to the first Black woman president of Leicester University Students’ Union and Queen Mother of her village, is inspiring, honest, and full of heart.
567 pages, Paperback
Published March 3, 2020
11 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 25, 2020
Biography is one of my favorite genres of books to read, and my favourite Bio’s
are: The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, I Know Why Caged Birds
Sing by Maya Angelou, Ake by Wole Soyinka, and The Autobiography of
Malcolm X. Now you can add The Space Between Black and White by Esua Jane
Goldsmith to that illustrious list.
This is a supremely written autobiography by Esua; it is heartwarming, funny,
intelligent, heartbreaking, joyful, sorrowful and inspiring. Esua courageously
takes the reader on a journey through her life, from being a mixed raced child
raised in an all-white family in England, to her quest to discover her other
family in Ghana. The journey is long and is punctuated by moments of anguish
along the way, but Esua does not give up, which is testament to her courage.
One of the most poignant aspect of Esua’s journey was her steadfast
determination to fight for and hold on to her AFRICAN identity, at time when it
was not cool to be African.
This is a story of the struggle for identity as Esua fights to determine her own
identity, based on who she is, rather than how other people see her. Esua’s
words take the reader on a physical journey across the globe, and an
emotional journey, as faces downs racism, overcomes gut-wrenching
challenges, and fights for equality wherever she went. This book also gave me
a very useful insight into feminism and the fight for equality. Esua’s words have
a way of enabling the reader to see the rationale behind the struggle, and root
for the underdog.
Esua’s beautiful, eloquent and inspiring personality shines through on every
page. I laughed out loud so many times, and I cried with her too. This is one of
the most inspirational books I have ever read, and I strongly believe that if
more people read this book or books like this, the world will be a better place.
Dr Maya Angelou said that Courage is the most important virtue of a human
being, because without it you cannot practice any other virtue consistently.
This virtue shines through on every page of this book. Esua does not let people
who had bullied her because of the colour of her skin, or made ill judgments,
get her down. She had the courage to fight for and pursue equality for those
without a voice - people like her who struggled to find a place between black
and white. Esua will provide a new generation of people who look like her and
who are also facing the same struggles she faced all her life with the inspiration
to determine and shape their identity. They are not alone.
Brilliant read…. Well done Queen Mother.
are: The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, I Know Why Caged Birds
Sing by Maya Angelou, Ake by Wole Soyinka, and The Autobiography of
Malcolm X. Now you can add The Space Between Black and White by Esua Jane
Goldsmith to that illustrious list.
This is a supremely written autobiography by Esua; it is heartwarming, funny,
intelligent, heartbreaking, joyful, sorrowful and inspiring. Esua courageously
takes the reader on a journey through her life, from being a mixed raced child
raised in an all-white family in England, to her quest to discover her other
family in Ghana. The journey is long and is punctuated by moments of anguish
along the way, but Esua does not give up, which is testament to her courage.
One of the most poignant aspect of Esua’s journey was her steadfast
determination to fight for and hold on to her AFRICAN identity, at time when it
was not cool to be African.
This is a story of the struggle for identity as Esua fights to determine her own
identity, based on who she is, rather than how other people see her. Esua’s
words take the reader on a physical journey across the globe, and an
emotional journey, as faces downs racism, overcomes gut-wrenching
challenges, and fights for equality wherever she went. This book also gave me
a very useful insight into feminism and the fight for equality. Esua’s words have
a way of enabling the reader to see the rationale behind the struggle, and root
for the underdog.
Esua’s beautiful, eloquent and inspiring personality shines through on every
page. I laughed out loud so many times, and I cried with her too. This is one of
the most inspirational books I have ever read, and I strongly believe that if
more people read this book or books like this, the world will be a better place.
Dr Maya Angelou said that Courage is the most important virtue of a human
being, because without it you cannot practice any other virtue consistently.
This virtue shines through on every page of this book. Esua does not let people
who had bullied her because of the colour of her skin, or made ill judgments,
get her down. She had the courage to fight for and pursue equality for those
without a voice - people like her who struggled to find a place between black
and white. Esua will provide a new generation of people who look like her and
who are also facing the same struggles she faced all her life with the inspiration
to determine and shape their identity. They are not alone.
Brilliant read…. Well done Queen Mother.
September 13, 2020
I really enjoyed this book as it described how the author brought together the 2 different sides of her heritage by finding her Ghanaian father and his family. Until then she had felt incomplete and not able to fit in even though she had a large family on her white mothers side. She had always been the only mixed race person when growing up in various places like Stafford and Norfolk, although this possibly worked to her advantage at Leicester university where she became union president almost accidentally. Later after doing some teaching she went on VSO but was posted to Tanzania and found that difficult too as volunteers were expected to be white and middle class. The book flowed well and was quite gripping especially when she visited Ghana. A real person’s story.
September 10, 2020
This is the first book that talked to to the spine of my identity.
March 3, 2021
19.1.21
Hello Jane
I’m currently listening to your beautiful book on Audible. It is such a treat to hear you tell it. I’m up to dear diary, dairy dearest and am wondering if I would have caught the play with words in quite the same way, as when I can hear your tone, pace, intonation...
Anyway I am loving it, even if you keep making me cry. Your deep insight and observations about identity are giving me so much to think about.
19.2.21
Dear Esua Jane
I only get to listen on the weekends when I’m doing quiet renovations and when my husband isn’t helping. So now you are up to your fear of heights, ascension to Queen Mother and all of the questions that throws up.
The story of your ancestor Esuantsiwa is so powerful. She has visited my dreams, the moment the gold dust clumps and stops draining through the sieve. I could hear her heart thumping, see the rich red soil beneath her feet, could feel it stabilise and feel the fishermen’s boats steady in the water, far out to sea. The gold became a wall and after that I started to wake...
Dear Esua Jane
I’m finished and my feelings were at first as for every very good book I have read. Loss. I do the same thing every time I am reading a really good book and slow right down at the end because I can’t bear it to end.
Audible makes your story and the telling of it into a relationship. So I feel I know you now, as if we had a long conversation. Even though of course we didn’t. It seemed much more personal than reading does, because I can hear your voice, the range of emotions. There is not the layer of interpretation and imagination that happens when I read, which for an autobiography is right. You did so well with that. Some narrators are so terrible it’s hard to stay with the story.
Your book has inspired many interesting conversations with my clients.
Thank you for this wonderful, eloquent book. I’m changed by it and grateful for it.
Hello Jane
I’m currently listening to your beautiful book on Audible. It is such a treat to hear you tell it. I’m up to dear diary, dairy dearest and am wondering if I would have caught the play with words in quite the same way, as when I can hear your tone, pace, intonation...
Anyway I am loving it, even if you keep making me cry. Your deep insight and observations about identity are giving me so much to think about.
19.2.21
Dear Esua Jane
I only get to listen on the weekends when I’m doing quiet renovations and when my husband isn’t helping. So now you are up to your fear of heights, ascension to Queen Mother and all of the questions that throws up.
The story of your ancestor Esuantsiwa is so powerful. She has visited my dreams, the moment the gold dust clumps and stops draining through the sieve. I could hear her heart thumping, see the rich red soil beneath her feet, could feel it stabilise and feel the fishermen’s boats steady in the water, far out to sea. The gold became a wall and after that I started to wake...
Dear Esua Jane
I’m finished and my feelings were at first as for every very good book I have read. Loss. I do the same thing every time I am reading a really good book and slow right down at the end because I can’t bear it to end.
Audible makes your story and the telling of it into a relationship. So I feel I know you now, as if we had a long conversation. Even though of course we didn’t. It seemed much more personal than reading does, because I can hear your voice, the range of emotions. There is not the layer of interpretation and imagination that happens when I read, which for an autobiography is right. You did so well with that. Some narrators are so terrible it’s hard to stay with the story.
Your book has inspired many interesting conversations with my clients.
Thank you for this wonderful, eloquent book. I’m changed by it and grateful for it.
August 12, 2020
Remarkable account of the author growing up mixed race in Britain in the 1950s and her experiences with feminism, politics, identity crisis, how Blackness and Mixed race identities are perceived in different countries.
I’m very happy I took my time listening to the audiobook because it felt like bonding with Goldsmith. I hope I get to meet her in person one day
The Audiobook was provided by Content Is Queen media communications in association with Audible Uk and Jacaranda Press.
The Space Between Black and White is part of the #twentyin20 initiative at Jacaranda Press
I’m very happy I took my time listening to the audiobook because it felt like bonding with Goldsmith. I hope I get to meet her in person one day
The Audiobook was provided by Content Is Queen media communications in association with Audible Uk and Jacaranda Press.
The Space Between Black and White is part of the #twentyin20 initiative at Jacaranda Press
December 6, 2020
This is my favourite read of the year. On one level it’s the story of a strikingly unusual and uplifting life, told by a gifted author; but interwoven into the many fascinating incidents there is also Esua Goldsmith’s perceptive commentary on her own constant search for identity.
Esua’s story begins as a Mixed-Race baby in a home for single mothers in London at a time when illegitimacy was habitually concealed, and Mixed-Race people were seldom seen in the city. The climax of her story could be the joyful moment when she embraces her newly discovered Ghanaian father during a trip to Ghana. Or is it the day of the nerve wracking but exhilarating ceremony that makes her Queen Mother of her Ghanaian village ten years after her father has died?
Esua highlights the frustrations of being Mixed-Race in a world that wants to pigeonhole her into Black or White boxes or into familiar stereotypes, with the ever-present danger that she’ll be found too black for White people and too white for Black people. Her need to understand the missing part of herself – her absent and unknown Black father – is frequently underestimated by friends, family and society.
Despite Esua’s personal struggles she seeks to combat injustice wherever she finds it, especially the oppression suffered by women; her inherent warmth, courage and generosity spill out from the pages. The book is full of compelling images: for instance, she persuades a hall full of university students to vote against the objectification of women by the powerful rugby club; she is deeply affected by the suffering of a Tanzanian woman compelled to transport an enormous log on her head while carrying her baby on her back; and she sits on the pavement downing lager with the Tooting down-and-outs during a personal crisis, shortly before experiencing an out of body experience. She plumbs the depths of human experience as well as chronicling its heights.
Esua’s insights, sense of humour, honesty and compassion subtly educate her readers in the issues that face people who are Mixed-Race. It is a book that will speak to anybody struggling with issues of identity. And it is a thoroughly enthralling and entertaining good read.
Esua’s story begins as a Mixed-Race baby in a home for single mothers in London at a time when illegitimacy was habitually concealed, and Mixed-Race people were seldom seen in the city. The climax of her story could be the joyful moment when she embraces her newly discovered Ghanaian father during a trip to Ghana. Or is it the day of the nerve wracking but exhilarating ceremony that makes her Queen Mother of her Ghanaian village ten years after her father has died?
Esua highlights the frustrations of being Mixed-Race in a world that wants to pigeonhole her into Black or White boxes or into familiar stereotypes, with the ever-present danger that she’ll be found too black for White people and too white for Black people. Her need to understand the missing part of herself – her absent and unknown Black father – is frequently underestimated by friends, family and society.
Despite Esua’s personal struggles she seeks to combat injustice wherever she finds it, especially the oppression suffered by women; her inherent warmth, courage and generosity spill out from the pages. The book is full of compelling images: for instance, she persuades a hall full of university students to vote against the objectification of women by the powerful rugby club; she is deeply affected by the suffering of a Tanzanian woman compelled to transport an enormous log on her head while carrying her baby on her back; and she sits on the pavement downing lager with the Tooting down-and-outs during a personal crisis, shortly before experiencing an out of body experience. She plumbs the depths of human experience as well as chronicling its heights.
Esua’s insights, sense of humour, honesty and compassion subtly educate her readers in the issues that face people who are Mixed-Race. It is a book that will speak to anybody struggling with issues of identity. And it is a thoroughly enthralling and entertaining good read.
October 11, 2020
I heard Esua speak at a series of Black Lives Matter gatherings on Tooting Common this summer. We all learnt something and I knew I'd learn even more by reading her book. It was one of my most enjoyable reads this summer. It worked on two levels - the remarkable story of Esua's meeting with her father and the Ghanaian connections that lead to - also her life story, achievements and battle to succeed, perhaps driven by this search for her identity. At times it was sad and painful but it moved at an incredible pace. Evocative portraits of a changing world, London life and how determination, persistence and not taking any nonsense can get you a long way. There's a lot going on... Womens' lib, black power, student politics, working class lives, VSO, travel, the bonds of family, the joy of meeting new people and exploring different cultures. Its gentle easy-going and good-humoured approach draws you along. This is an inspirational story of a life well lived, fighting injustice and inequality. I've passed it on to my daughter who is just setting out on her journey. For any young person who reads it, the message is clear GO FOR IT - have no fear, you can do anything - it made me want to be 18 and do it all over again!
December 7, 2020
Once I started reading The Space between Black and White, I found it difficult to put it down. Esuantsiwa’s writing is vivid and dynamic and she draws the reader into her inner world – that of a mixed race child living and growing up in a white, racist Britain – and the loneliness of being different from those around her. From there, she carries us through school, university and later life on her journey of self-discovery and empowerment. She is a remarkable woman and her unique voice and identity shine through this book and add to its enjoyment The book is also a fascinating re-visiting of British life in the second half of the twentieth century. For those of us who lived through those times it brings back memories – both good and bad - and is a stark reminder that, despite the advances over the last half century, we still have so far to go in our struggles to root out both racism and sexisim in the twenty-first first century. This book is a great read and I would go so far as to say it is essential reading for anyone looking for insights into the experience of being mixed race and female in Britain.
October 10, 2020
It is a challenge for anyone to write an intensely personal book, whilst also expressing strongly felt principles and to navigate across politically eventful decades and a broad range of experiences. This very detailed memoir enables the author to tell her story in a way that draws in her readers and enables them to agree or disagree, experience fellow feeling or reflect on different issues of identity or life choices, especially when you share the same decades. Because the author is honest about her feelings and how she reached personal decisions as a woman, it is also possible to view the stark difference between the 1950s for the author's mother and the 1960s/70s for her daughter. "The Space between Black and White" describes a particular journey around and towards a securely positive feeling of Mixed-Race identity. This author's journey highlights in particular the strength from a loving birth family, friendships, then her own family with children and the Ghanaian family that she eventually finds.
January 21, 2023
I love this book. It’s a memoir of such an interesting, colourful, eventful life, told with openness and immediacy so I feel I��m there, and always fully on the author’s side. She comes across as so courageous, so full of love, and so generous to others in their difficulties, even when they cause her pain. There are a lot of chapters, and every one adds an important piece to the story. It’s made me think about how I live my life, how I relate to others, and opened my eyes to parts of my history where I was blind to other perspectives. Difficult issues are handled with a light touch, clarity and tact - I don’t end up feeling guilty, I just understand more and want to do better in future. I want all my friends to read it, I have been recommending it all over the place. And it’s pacy and very readable. Reading it was a huge pleasure, and has left me full of joy!
February 15, 2021
Esuan born in 1953 in London- white mum, black dad. Brought up in loving white working class family without dad few miles from where Windrush generation settled in 1947. Vividly describes racist existence outside her loving family- hostile, unforgiving, cruel for child of mixed race. Support from her family and her own relentless determination she achieves a university education, travels worldwide, becomes politicised, active in Black Lives Matters, searches for her father.
Astonishingly honest autobiography which must encourage young people to believe in themselves, older people to reflect on Britain's shameful past and support for all age groups to fight for equality.
You won't be able to put this book down.
Astonishingly honest autobiography which must encourage young people to believe in themselves, older people to reflect on Britain's shameful past and support for all age groups to fight for equality.
You won't be able to put this book down.
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November 26, 2021Friday 26 November 2021
At times unbearably painful and sad beyond words. Yet, also, horrendously funny and ultimately uplifting, this is a story of the human spirit. Not only is this book a personal journey to finding truth and harmony, it is also about the strength and courage to rise again and again in the face of adversity; to meet the worse and respond with compassion and love.
Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith’s book “The Space Between Black and White” is a testament to humanity.
At times unbearably painful and sad beyond words. Yet, also, horrendously funny and ultimately uplifting, this is a story of the human spirit. Not only is this book a personal journey to finding truth and harmony, it is also about the strength and courage to rise again and again in the face of adversity; to meet the worse and respond with compassion and love.
Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith’s book “The Space Between Black and White” is a testament to humanity.
October 20, 2022
What an amazing story. I don’t usually like reading books longer than 400 pages (very short attention span!) but this had so many parts to it and such an incredible life story it was hard to put down. She has managed to achieve so much from such inauspicious beginnings. Well worth a read.
October 14, 2020
Incredible inspiring story.
January 7, 2021
I was absolutely captivated by this book from beginning to end. Esuantsiwa's story was a roller-coaster of emotions and I feel like I've learnt so much from reading this.
November 22, 2021
Audiobook. A strong recommend.
November 13, 2022
Very interesting personal account, the writer has experienced and done a lot! I felt though it could have done with some editing as it felt a little repetitive and long in some places
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews