Red Dust Road

'What makes us who we are? My adoption is a story that has happened to me. I couldn't make it up.'

A memoir and soul-searching journey by Jackie Kay.

‘Like the best memoirs, this one is written with novelistic and poetic flair. Red Dust Road is a fantastic, probing and heart-warming read’ – Independent

'One of Scotland's most celebrated living writers'– Spectator

From one of our best-loved poets and former Makar of Scotland, Red Dust Road is a heart-stopping story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny.

From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, Jackie Kay’s journey in Red Dust Road is one of unexpected twists, turns and deep emotions. I

In a book remarkable for its warmth and candour, Kay discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that what triumphs, ultimately, is love.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.