Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter

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Things look bleak. The propensity to despair is strong but should not be indulged. Sing yourself up. Imagine a world in which you might thrive for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.”

In his final year of at Heriot Watt he was awarded a bursary from The Guardian to study journalism at City University and started working at The Guardian in 1993. In 1996 he was awarded the Laurence Stern Fellowship, which sends a young British journalist to work at the Washington Post for three months.He was surprised re-reading his articles how relatively nuanced his analysis was when it came to figures such as Mandela and, later, Obama. “My writing was actually less gushing than most. [There’s] a slight distance.” Later he says: “The nature of both my experiences and my politics and my interest in journalism is to look for the complexity … To try and get to the more granular stuff. So Obama or Mandela? It’s more complicated than just dancing in the street. Trump, it’s more complicated than ‘It’s just racism’. Brexit, it’s more complicated than ‘just xenophobia’. Things are usually more complicated than the dominant media narrative.” In a rich mix of reportage, memoir and polemic, among other thought-provoking pieces, Gary asks readers to contemplate what a White History Month might look like and argues that all statues of historical figures, from Rosa Parks to Cecil Rhodes, should be taken down.

This was the article that launched my career, and within a few months I was offered a staff job. Originally I had wanted to be the Moscow correspondent. But in 1996 I was awarded the Laurence Stern fellowship, which sends one young British journalist to the Washington Post every year to work for a summer on the national desk. I fell in love with an American. Within three years I had written a book about travelling through America’s deep south; within seven I was the Guardian’s New York correspondent. Arguably though, the most challenging contribution is the article Riots are a Class Act—and often they’re the only alternative. This is a thoughtful and provocative piece, which showcases Younge’s brilliant use of language. Questioning the very use of terminology he asks, “What were the French and American revolutions but riots, endowed by Enlightenment principles and blessed by history?” When commenting on the ultimate weakness of young rioters, he observes, “Many of these French youths may have had a ball last week. But what they really need is a party—a political organisation that will articulate their aspirations.”Fragrant steam rising over a meaty grill’ at Mangal 1. Photograph: Frantzesco Kangaris/The Guardian Gary has witnessed how much change is possible, the power of systems to thwart those aspirations, and compels you to ‘imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.' His books have also won many awards. In 2017 Another Day in the Death of America won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia Journalism School and Nieman Foundation, was shortlisted for the Helen Berenstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism from New York Public Library and The Jhalak prize and was longlisted for The Orwell Prize for Books and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non Fiction from American Library Association. Who Are We? was shortlisted for the Bristol Festival of Ideas Prize. No Place Like Home was shortlisted for The Guardian’s first book award. At a special event, live in London and livestreamed, Gary Younge will discuss his new book, Dispatches from the Diaspora. He writes frequently about the specific ways in which racism and identity express themselves across place and time. Younge’s brother lives in Ireland, so he spends time here. While visiting in the late 80s and early 90s he was sometimes treated with “a sense of exoticism”, but he also felt “a broad, reflexive identification with a sense of oppression”.