Lesley-Ann Brown

In Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black Woman to her European Son, Trinidadian-American writer & activist Lesley-Ann Brown explores, through the lens of motherhood, issues such as migration, identity, nationhood and how it relates to land, forced migrations, imprisonment and genocide for Black and Indigenous people. Having moved to Copenhagen, Denmark from Brooklyn over eighteen years ago, Brown attempts to contextualise her and her son’s existence in a post-colonial and supposedly post-racial world in where the very machine of so-called progress has been premised upon the demise of her lineage. Through these letters, Brown writes the past into the present – from the country that has been declared “The Happiest Place in the World” – creating a vision that is a necessary alternative to the dystopian one currently being bought and sold.

“Blackgirl on Mars is the second non-fiction book by Lesley-Ann Brown following her memoir debut, ‘Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black Woman to her European Son’ (2028). Brown journeys through the United States during the zenith of the Black Lives Matter movement, ending up in Trinidad and Tobago to perform last rites for her grandmother. She employs personal narrative against the backdrop of world affairs to produce urgent, activated reportage on the crisis of belonging.” Trinidad and Tobago Express