Five black men

19 October 2024, The Tablet

Malcolm X might provide Ekow Eshun’s credo.

Herman Hiller / Wikimedia Commons

The common theme here is struggle, struggle for acceptance, struggle for respect.

The Strangers
EKOW ESHUN

HAMISH HAMILTON, 400 PP, £20
TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £18 • TEL 020 7799 4064

“I’M NOT a diner until you let me dine, then I become a diner”: Malcolm X’s words might be the credo of this new book by writer, journalist and broadcaster Ekow Eshun. Here are scenes in the lives of five black men born in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: an actor, an explorer, a psychiatrist/activist, a politician and a footballer. Each represents a fight for the right to dine, the right to become a success, a player.

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