Red dust road: an autobiographical journey by Kay, Jackie, 1961-Publication date 2010 Topics Kay, Jackie, 1961-, Women authors, Scottish - 20th century. Red Dust Road is an autobiographical novel by Scottish author Jackie Kay which tells the story of her twenty-year search for her birth parents, and her quest to be acknowledged by them both as their biological child. The book opens in the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja, where Kay meets her natural father, a born again Christian who is disappointed that she has failed to give herself to Christ. Jun 26, 2010 Red Dust Road opens in the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja. Jackie Kay is confronted by the man who is her natural father. He is a born-again Christian and self-styled faith healer who prays over her.
- Aug 15, 2019 Sasha Frost in Red Dust Road. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian P art of the appeal of Jackie Kay’s memoir is the way it loops through time. It’s called Red Dust Road, but the poet’s path to.
- Red Dust Road is Jackie Kay's account of growing up in Glasgow, black, lesbian and adopted. It also covers her search for her birth parents. It is a companion piece to her recent poetry collection Fiere (which I rev Red Dust Road won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and I was delighted to win copies of all the shortlisted books in a.
A brand spanking new Read of the Week from our Finance and People Assistant Kate who has chosen Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay.
Jackie Kay takes us on a heart-warming, funny and moving journey in her autobiographical account of tracing and meeting her birth parents; her Highland mother and Nigerian father and the prejudice she faced growing up in Scotland with her adoptive, white parents.
The book jumps in time and space, from Glasgow to Nigeria where she first meets her biological father in a hotel and instantly she becomes aware of the physical similarities and the intrinsic differences the pair have, which I believe shapes the book throughout. She shows us the importance of love and acceptance, something in which she feels she struggles to get from her biological mother and father, but receives in abundance from her Scottish parents.
The whole feel to the book is that Jackie is trying her best to connect to her biological roots to get to know Jonathan, Elizabeth and her brothers and sisters as if she feels like part of her is missing. In doing her best to track them down and unite it causes Jackie pain and suffering along the way, questioning and doubting her views on herself, with her biological father Jonathan treating her as part of his sinful past, being a born again Christian.
“I realise with a fresh horror that Jonathan is seeing me as the sin… I am sitting here, evidence of his sinful past, but I am the sinner, the live embodiment of his sin. He’s moved on now, he’s a clean man, a man of glory and of God.”
I think this book is great for showing how much we are shaped not only by our DNA but what we inherit from our family; songs, stories and experiences. It makes you think about what you appreciate and value in your own life, especially the little things you can often take for granted. We see the kindness that her adoptive parents give her and how much she treasures their relationships and how she wouldn’t change a thing.
“I drift off trying to imagine this other life, the one that I’d have had, had I been placed on the red dust road less travelled by, the one where I’d have been going to Nzagha every Christmas since I was born. It’s alarming, the other life, It thrills and scares me in equal measure because I would never wanted to be without my mum and dad, John and Helen, and can’t imagine my life without them. It pains me to imagine that.”
Red Dust Roadis an autobiographical novel by Scottish author Jackie Kay which tells the story of her twenty-year search for her birth parents, and her quest to be acknowledged by them both as their biological child. The book opens in the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja, where Kay meets her natural father, a born again Christian who is disappointed that she has failed to give herself to Christ. The father and daughter do not bond, and never see each other again, because Kay is the walking symbol of the sin that he wants to leave behind him.
Kay was kept a secret from both her biological mother and father, adopted soon after her birth by communists living in Glasgow, Scotland; she lives a happy existence but the birth of her own child inspires her search and interest in where she herself came from. Kay weaves a fascinating tale of growing up in a 1970s Britain that was none too inclusive, and where she experienced bullying both as a child and as an adult. It is also the story of Kay's search for her own identity,.
Red Dust Chinese Drama
Red Dust Road is Jackie Kay's best-known book, and she is also well-known in her native Scotland as a playwright and a poet. In 2016 she was appointed to the role of Scotland's Poet Laureate. She received her first accolade, th Somerset Maugham Award, in 1994 for the novel Other Lovers and in 2006 was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth I. Red Dust Road earned her the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year Award, and she was also shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize. IN 2020 she was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honors List for Services to Literature.