Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: The Generation Gap

The Generation Gap

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, The Generation Gap

Writer Howard Jacobson, photographer Ruth Sutoyé talk family histories with Matthew Sweet

"I came out of the womb in every sense the wrong way round" - in his memoir Mother's Boy the Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson considers his family history.

Before Them, We is a photographic project by Ruth Sutoyé and also the title of an anthology of poems in which a group of poets of African descent reflect upon the lives of their grandparents and elders and the inter-generational relationships in the families they went on to establish.  Ruth and co-editor and poet Jacob Sam-La Rose talk to Matthew Sweet alongside Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson - the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants - who has just published a memoir exploring his early life in a working-class family in 1940s Manchester where he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce before becoming a writer.  

Mother's Boy by Howard Jacobson is out now 
You can find photographs from Before Them, We on https://www.ruthsutoye.com/  and the poetry anthology is published by Flipped Eye. 

Image credit:  Adama Jalloh

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

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