Afua Hirsch - Writer, broadcaster and best-selling author

Meet Afua

Afua Hirsch is a British writer, broadcaster, and best-selling author who explores race, identity, and injustice through impactful writing and documentaries. Today, she continues to share powerful narratives and advocate for human rights.

Writers’ Retreat in Bali

15–25 October 2026

Write alongside Afua Hirsch, Yomi Ṣode and Mallence Bart-Williams at a serene eco lodge at the foot of Mount Batukaru.

Decolonising My Body

A Radical Exploration of Rituals & Beauty

From The Sundays Times bestselling author of Brit(ish)

Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging

Where are you really from?

You’re British. Your parents are British. You were raised in Britain. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British. So why do people keep asking you where you are from?

News & Features

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Rihanna for British Vogue

Podcast 'Legacy' at top of the charts

Podcast ‘Legacy’ at top of the charts

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Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

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Award-winning Short Film “Flowers”

The Pandemic Year

Jameela

Jameela Jamil in conversation with Afua Hirsch

African-Renaissance-Senegal

African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power

Gurls Talk with Adwoa Aboah

Take Your Knee Off My Neck

As featured in

Time

Vogue

The New York Times

Brit(ish): Afua Hirsch on race and identify in Britain today

Upcoming Events

16

Nov

2026

Legacy Live: In Conversation with Elif Shafak

Afua takes Legacy, the history podcast she co-hosts with Peter Frankopan, on stage at Kings Place for an in-person evening with the award-winning novelist Elif Shafak. Afua and Peter will be in conversation with Shafak about her new novel, One Brief Moment in All Eternity, and about the writing of history and memory that runs […]

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Follow @afuahirsch on Instagram

What did Benjamin Zephaniah mean to me?

He was our Northstar of creativity, truth talking, relentless humanity, the joyful chaos of art

He overcame every kind of obstacle imaginable for a young black man growing up in Britain and yet somehow made that experience relatable for everyone

He hated war, the killing of innocent people already oppressed, the complacency that comes with following the media or assimilating into the establishment without question

It was a privilege to give the 2nd annual Benjamin Zephaniah lecture at the University of Birmingham

Alongside some breathtakingly talented young poets @ayanmoaden Zarah Alam @casey_bailey

Thank you Alex Johl and Joy Warmington, who made it such a special event.

@tv_trev for the photos

And to Birmingham for showing up, wow!

Reparations is not a debate, it’s the only thing that makes sense *according to the values Britain purports to have*

Reposting this essay I wrote a while back for @amnestyuk on Progressive Foreign Policy. Because this same “debate” has been going round and round my whole life time and every generation before that since enslaved people rose up and fought for liberation

Images:
1. Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, sculptures dedicated to our enslaved ancestors @osramba_media
2. Redemption Song, Emancipation Park, Jamaica by Laura Facey
3. Monument to the martyrs of the 1823 revolt in Demerara, Guyana
4. Emancipation plaque, Georgetown, Guyana
5. Kwame Akoto-Bamfo
6. Yinka Shonibare @yinkashonibarefoundation Suspended States

I realised I have had the privilege to travel all over the world where black people were colonised and enslaved and see so many of the ways we have depicted this struggle with grace and dignity…

maybe I will write a whole thing about that. If you’d like me to lmk ✨

(Link to essay in bio)

I will carry this book wherever I go forever more

We live in a world that is sick with oppression, but we have black liberationists, to remind us who we are supposed to be.

This book resonates with me on so many levels
Rejecting the social conditioning that tells us to create art for its own sake

The way some of us have an abusive relationship with music… Saul Williams describes the exact moment he realised hip hop had fallen, infiltrated with the forces that seek to destroy all our conscious movements. “Entertainment” that zombifies. And it was a song I loved sooo much when it came out 🫣

The importance of trip hop! Of Brazil. (Big up @vempraflup !)
Of Amiri Bakara, Assata Shakur, Kwame Ture, Nikki Giovanni, and Paul Robeson…

Paul Robeson, who changed my life when I read his biography age 15, how he was demonised and smeared so that we would not engage with his message, such as:

Every artist, every scientist, must decide NOW where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights.
There are no impartial observers.
The artist must take sides

Thank you @saulwilliams 🙏🏽
Songs My Mother Taught Me
WHY THE ARTIST MUST TAKE SIDES
@haymarketbooks

Climbing a 5000 ft live volcano in the middle of the night seemed like the ideal ritual to embody our writers’ transformation after a week of peaceful writing retreat 👀😅

It was harder than we thought!
And also more magical ✨

@writers.portal

Lil BTS from my evening with @barackobama ☺️
@faneproductions
@evierawnsley.mua 💄
@edelinelee 👗
@braidedbybajan 💁🏽‍♀️
@hayleymenziesofficial
All my friends and family who showed up in person and in spirit 🥹

This came around fast! 😮

Join me for a unique in conversation with President Obama in Manchester this Thursday…

Presented by @seatunique
To book your tickets, click the link in bio or visit @faneproductions
✨

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You can buy Decolonising My Body online at the following retailers

Available in hardback, paperback, eBook (including Kindle)
and audiobook