August 8th, 2010

England’s green and prejudiced land

When David James Smith’s family moved from London to a quiet Sussex town, the BNP neighbour came as a shock. Yet it was smaller, subtle incidents that dented his faith that his mixed-race children would be treated as equals. His account is a powerful, personal journey into living with racism.

Lewes is a genteel town for liberals and libertarians on the edge of the South Downs, so it was quite a surprise to dis- cover that we had been living next door to a neo- Nazi for a year, when we first moved there in the summer of 2005.

read it at www.sundaytimes.co.uk

NEWS AND EVENTS

Latest News

  • The Sleep Of Reason – The James Bulger Case by David James Smith:
    Faber Finds edition with new preface, available September 15th, 2011.

  • Young Mandela the movie – in development.

    From The Guardian
    Read the article

    In the Diary column of The Independent, April 13th, 2011

    More on my previously unsubstantiated claim that the writer-director Peter Kosminsky, creator of The Promise, is working on a drama about Nelson Mandela. I’ve now learnt that the project is a feature film, in development with Film 4, about the young Mandela. Kosminsky is currently at work on the script and, given the complaints about the anti-Jewish bias of The Promise, it is unlikely to be a standard bland portrait of the former South African president.

Latest Review

    New York Times – J. M. Ledgard

  • Nelson Mandela was circumcised as a 16-year-old boy alongside a flowing river in the Eastern Cape. The ceremony was similar to those of other Bantu peoples. An elder moved through the line making ring-like cuts, and foreskins fell away. The boys could not so much as blink; it was a rite of passage that took you beyond pain. read full review

See David James Smith…

Jon Venables: What Went Wrong
BBC 1, 10.35
Thursday, April 21st, 2011