Musa Okwonga – a young Black man who grew up in a predominantly working-class town – was not your typical Eton College student.
The experience moulded and challenged him… but also made him wonder why a place that was so good for him also seemed to contribute to the harm being done to the UK. The more he searched, the more evident the connection became between one of Britain’s most prestigious institutions and the genesis of Brexit.
Woven throughout this deeply personal and unflinching memoir of Musa’s five years at Eton in the 1990s is a present-day narrative which engages with much wider questions: privilege, the distribution of wealth, the rise of the far right, systemic racism, the ‘boys’ club’ of government and the power of the few to control the fate of the many.
One of Them is both an intimate account and a timely exploration of race and class in modern Britain.
About the Author :
Musa Okwonga qualified and practised as a lawyer before pursuing a career as an author, broadcaster, poet, musician and podcaster.
He has written seven books. A Cultured Left Foot was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award; Striking Out – co-authored with Ian Wright – won the 2022 Sunday Times Children’s Sports Book of the Year Award; and his debut novel, In The End, It Was All About Love, was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize.
His journalism and opinion pieces have appeared in GQ, the Financial Times, Die Welt, Die Zeit, The Guardian, the New Statesman and the New York Times, among other publications.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford. He lives in Berlin.
Review :
‘A writer worth waiting half a century for’
‘The memoir I’ve enjoyed most this year’
‘Moving … stays with you long after you’ve finished it’
‘A superb memoir … written with a poet’s lyricism and a journalist’s clarity’
‘Lyrical, often funny, intensely personal and undeniably thought-provoking’
‘A nuanced and complex account’
‘An urgent exposition on how [Eton]’s undue influence is shaping political forces - from the current government and Brexit to the rise of nationalist and racist politics’
