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Some Kind of Black
Coming of age as a black man in London, Nigerian Dele struggles without the support of his best friend, his sister Dapo, who suffers from sickle cell anemia. (Nancy Pearl)
Paperback
First published June 13, 1996
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About the author
Diran Adebayo
7 books8 followersDiran Adebayo is a British novelist, cultural critic and broadcaster best known for his vivid portrayals of modern London life and his distinctive use of language.
Born Oludiran Adebayo in London in 1968, Adebayo won a major scholarship to Malvern College where he boarded as an adolescent, and is an Oxford University Law graduate.
His debut novel, Some Kind of Black, was one of the first to articulate a British-born African perspective, and it won him numerous awards, including the Writers Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the Author's Club First Novel Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize, serialised on British Radio and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His follow-up, the neo-noir fable My Once Upon A Time, which he's described as a 'latter day Pilgrim's Progress', fused film noir and fairytale with Yoruba myth to striking effect, and solidified his reputation as a groundbreaker. In 2004 he co-edited 'New Writing 12', the British Council's annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature, with Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers. In 2009, he donated the short story Calculus to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Adebayo's story was published in the 'Air' collection.
Adebayo worked as Senior News Reporter at The Voice newspaper and as a reporter on BBC television before his manuscript for Some Kind of Black won the Saga Prize. He was formerly a columnist for New Nation newspaper, and is a regular presence in the British press, writing for newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent and The New Statesman magazine. In 2005, he wrote the documentary, Out of Africa for BBC Television and in 2003, The Evening Standard named him one of London's 100 most influential people.
He is currently one of the writers-in-residence of the charity First Story.
Adebayo is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the National Council of Arts Council England. He lives in London and is the younger brother of the writer, journalist, publisher and broadcaster Dotun Adebayo.
Born Oludiran Adebayo in London in 1968, Adebayo won a major scholarship to Malvern College where he boarded as an adolescent, and is an Oxford University Law graduate.
His debut novel, Some Kind of Black, was one of the first to articulate a British-born African perspective, and it won him numerous awards, including the Writers Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the Author's Club First Novel Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize, serialised on British Radio and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His follow-up, the neo-noir fable My Once Upon A Time, which he's described as a 'latter day Pilgrim's Progress', fused film noir and fairytale with Yoruba myth to striking effect, and solidified his reputation as a groundbreaker. In 2004 he co-edited 'New Writing 12', the British Council's annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature, with Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers. In 2009, he donated the short story Calculus to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Adebayo's story was published in the 'Air' collection.
Adebayo worked as Senior News Reporter at The Voice newspaper and as a reporter on BBC television before his manuscript for Some Kind of Black won the Saga Prize. He was formerly a columnist for New Nation newspaper, and is a regular presence in the British press, writing for newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent and The New Statesman magazine. In 2005, he wrote the documentary, Out of Africa for BBC Television and in 2003, The Evening Standard named him one of London's 100 most influential people.
He is currently one of the writers-in-residence of the charity First Story.
Adebayo is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the National Council of Arts Council England. He lives in London and is the younger brother of the writer, journalist, publisher and broadcaster Dotun Adebayo.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 7, 2014
I read this and then had a Q&A with the author, who I found to be a really personable and interesting bloke.*
The difficulty a novel like this has is that it's instantly lauded and pigeonholed by well-meaning London literary types. Anything that describes an ethnic life beyond their ken which is written well becomes a victim of its own success. I think the author survived the patronising quite well. All he did was write about real life in a very real way. And that's what I found fairly interesting about it. The white characters behave towards the protagonist in a fairly ignorant and predictable way, and the London boy in him finds it difficult to let go of his roots... and some of his roots want to strangle him.
*Bloke. Yes, I'm allowed to say bloke because I'm white British and using my own patois to add colour to this review. See what I did there?
The difficulty a novel like this has is that it's instantly lauded and pigeonholed by well-meaning London literary types. Anything that describes an ethnic life beyond their ken which is written well becomes a victim of its own success. I think the author survived the patronising quite well. All he did was write about real life in a very real way. And that's what I found fairly interesting about it. The white characters behave towards the protagonist in a fairly ignorant and predictable way, and the London boy in him finds it difficult to let go of his roots... and some of his roots want to strangle him.
*Bloke. Yes, I'm allowed to say bloke because I'm white British and using my own patois to add colour to this review. See what I did there?
July 10, 2020
I don't know where I got the rec for this book but it was on Kindle Unlimited so I was more than happy to try it out. And it was a bit of a strange one. Warnings for physical abuse, racism, police brutality and quite graphic violence.
This was described as a 'coming of age' of sorts but I really don't agree with that description. Dele is born in London to African parents and goes to Oxford for university, fulfilling their parents' hopes for their children to have better lives. He has to juggle between British and being African, while dealing with racism, both overt and subtle, and having to come to terms with his family as it is. Dele's sister, Dappo, also plays a big role in this book as the person Dele is closest to in the world.
This book came out in the 90s and was contemporary at the time it was written, so we have a lot of pre-internet London culture which was interesting to read about from the perspective of someone living it, rather than someone looking back on it twenty years later. It was an interesting setting because while I was alive in 1996, I wasn't an adult, I didn't live in London and I'm not black. It was good to read about a completely different perspective to my own, one I don't see highlighted especially in the nineties. However, there were issues being highlighted in this book that are still happening now, such as police brutality. This book centres around Dele and how he deals with police brutality having a major impact on his family and his life. I kept reading about this situation and how Dele was dealing with it and wondering how it would go down in the age of the internet. It was fascinating reading about the impact of the press on things like that, when alternative perspectives were much harder to find.
That said, we would get distracted from the main plot and look on Dele's romantic exploits which got a little tiresome after a while when he didn't seem to learn from them at all.
I will say about this book though - every time I had a question about something like where Dele was getting his money from and what was going on with Dappo, the question would come up in the next few pages. This book also had a way of drawing you back in. I was tempted to put the book down a few times, especially when the book seemed to move away from the brother-sister relationship (my favourite part of the book) but then something else would spark my interest (Gabriel, Dele's father, Dele's mother) and I would be pulled back in. And I really liked the ending.
3.5 stars!
This was described as a 'coming of age' of sorts but I really don't agree with that description. Dele is born in London to African parents and goes to Oxford for university, fulfilling their parents' hopes for their children to have better lives. He has to juggle between British and being African, while dealing with racism, both overt and subtle, and having to come to terms with his family as it is. Dele's sister, Dappo, also plays a big role in this book as the person Dele is closest to in the world.
This book came out in the 90s and was contemporary at the time it was written, so we have a lot of pre-internet London culture which was interesting to read about from the perspective of someone living it, rather than someone looking back on it twenty years later. It was an interesting setting because while I was alive in 1996, I wasn't an adult, I didn't live in London and I'm not black. It was good to read about a completely different perspective to my own, one I don't see highlighted especially in the nineties. However, there were issues being highlighted in this book that are still happening now, such as police brutality. This book centres around Dele and how he deals with police brutality having a major impact on his family and his life. I kept reading about this situation and how Dele was dealing with it and wondering how it would go down in the age of the internet. It was fascinating reading about the impact of the press on things like that, when alternative perspectives were much harder to find.
That said, we would get distracted from the main plot and look on Dele's romantic exploits which got a little tiresome after a while when he didn't seem to learn from them at all.
I will say about this book though - every time I had a question about something like where Dele was getting his money from and what was going on with Dappo, the question would come up in the next few pages. This book also had a way of drawing you back in. I was tempted to put the book down a few times, especially when the book seemed to move away from the brother-sister relationship (my favourite part of the book) but then something else would spark my interest (Gabriel, Dele's father, Dele's mother) and I would be pulled back in. And I really liked the ending.
3.5 stars!
September 28, 2010
A good read! Set in London about a young Nigerian student studying at Oxford and he copes with his friends (white and black), his family, racism and how these factor pull on his life. The pace is fast and captures the frentic nature London/black life in the early 90s.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews