Bestselling author, journalist and broadcaster Afua Hirsch comes to Shoreham Wordfest for a special conversation about identity, ancestry, beauty and the ideas that shape how we see our bodies.
Hirsch will discuss her book Decolonising My Body, an intensely personal and wide-ranging exploration of race, beauty standards, cultural inheritance and the ways colonial history continues to influence ideas about appearance.
The book began with a period of questioning in Hirsch’s own life. As she entered her forties, she began examining assumptions she had carried about beauty and the body, from hair, skin and body modification to sexuality, ageing and the ways different cultures understand adornment.
Her resulting journey combines personal experience with global research, interviews and cultural history.
Hirsch asks how ideas about what is considered beautiful, respectable or acceptable have been shaped by colonialism and patriarchy, and what it might mean to reject those standards and rediscover older traditions and different ways of understanding the body.
She is one of Britain’s best-known writers on race, identity and belonging. Her bestselling book Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging examined the complexities of being Black and British and helped bring questions of national identity and racial inequality to a wide mainstream audience.
Her work as a journalist and filmmaker has also included programmes exploring African history, culture and the legacies of slavery, including Enslaved, which she co-presented with Samuel L. Jackson.
At Shoreham Wordfest, Hirsch will be in conversation with Professor Margaretta Jolly of the University of Sussex, whose work encompasses life writing, oral history and cultural heritage.
For Black History Month audiences, the event offers an opportunity to consider how history continues to influence highly personal questions around identity, beauty, ancestry and belonging.
Afua Hirsch: Decolonising My Body takes place at Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham-by-Sea on Tuesday 6th October 2026 from 7:30pm to 9:00pm.
Tickets are £12.
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