Almost Brown — with Charlotte Gill

On this episode of Below the Radar, Charlotte Gill, author of the books Ladykiller and Eating Dirt, sits down with Am Johal to explore her latest book, Almost Brown, which shares her experience growing up as a mixed-race child in a multi-cultural/religious household.

Charlotte describes the family dynamics that led her Punjabi father to marry her English mother and become estranged from his father, and in turn, the process that led Charlotte to becoming estranged from her own father.

The episode ends on a meaningful conversation about how mixed identities narratives have changed across generations, and how the language to discuss those identities have evolved.

Charlotte Gill is the author of Eating Dirt, a national bestseller that won the B.C. National Award for Canadian Nonfiction. Her previous book, Ladykiller, was a Governor General’s Award nominee. Charlotte is the Rogers Communications Chair in Literary Journalism at the Banff Centre as well as faculty in the MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of King’s College. Her latest book, Almost Brown, a mixed-race family memoir, is published by Penguin Random House.