Charlotte Williams

Bernardine Evaristo

An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story

Presenting a hidden but very real face of Britishness that feels esoteric yet relatable at the same time, Sugar and Slate is an amalgamation of education and entertainment personified

A wonderful memoir-cum-polemic . . . it is the wit and sagacity that Williams brings to her anecdotes that makes her writing so greatly fulfilling

I loved this book . . . Williams pushes us to ask what 'Welsh' means, what Guyanese means, as much as her luminous words and intricate structure force a deeper understanding of 'classic'

In this moving and thought-provoking book, Charlotte Williams demonstrates how global histories impact our most intimate spaces and acts. Linking the histories of Africa, South America and rural Wales, it is an unforgettable account of a search for belonging and identity

‘One of the most arresting memoirs I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading . . . Charlotte Williams reveals lesser-known Welsh history alongside sharing an un-put-down-able account of her journey through dislocation and otherness to self-hood

An imaginative expansion of the autobiographical form

Charlotte’s observations and descriptions in Sugar and Slate are highly original and her writing nothing less than brilliant

A bona-fide classic . . . The books’ relevance today is undimmed and undiminished . . . Sugar and Slate is animated by vivid glimpses of daily life and the wider culture of all of the places along Williams’ life-route, with pulsing, bravura writing about dances in Georgetown

Charlotte Williams' thought-provoking and beautiful memoir Sugar and Slate comes back to the fore to retell an ever-pertinent tale of twentieth century multi-ethnic Britain

The daughter of a white Welsh-speaking mother and a Black father from Guyana, Charlotte Williams' childhood world was one of mixed messages, dominated by the feeling that 'somehow to be half Welsh and half Afro-Caribbean was always to be half of something but never quite anything whole at all'. 
 
Sugar and Slate tells the fascinating story of her journey of self-discovery, toing and froing between the small north Wales town where she grew up, Africa and the Caribbean. Blending memoir with historical research, Sugar and Slate delves deep into Black Welsh history, revealing the nation as home to one of the first interracial marriages in Britain in 1768, and a site of Britain's first major race riots in 1919. 
 
Powerful, lyrical and intimate, Williams' experience casts light on Wales and Welshness, illuminating what it is to be racially marginalized within a community, which is itself marginalized within Britain, and offering a unique insight into the complex Black history of Wales.

Charlotte Williams

Praise for Sugar and Slate

An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story

Presenting a hidden but very real face of Britishness that feels esoteric yet relatable at the same time, Sugar and Slate is an amalgamation of education and entertainment personified

A wonderful memoir-cum-polemic . . . it is the wit and sagacity that Williams brings to her anecdotes that makes her writing so greatly fulfilling

An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story

Presenting a hidden but very real face of Britishness that feels esoteric yet relatable at the same time, Sugar and Slate is an amalgamation of education and entertainment personified

A wonderful memoir-cum-polemic . . . it is the wit and sagacity that Williams brings to her anecdotes that makes her writing so greatly fulfilling

An engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story

Presenting a hidden but very real face of Britishness that feels esoteric yet relatable at the same time, Sugar and Slate is an amalgamation of education and entertainment personified

A wonderful memoir-cum-polemic . . . it is the wit and sagacity that Williams brings to her anecdotes that makes her writing so greatly fulfilling

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