Book cover of Red Dust Road

Book description

Taking the reader from Glasgow to Lagos and beyond, Red Dust Road is a heart-stopping memoir, a story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny.

With an introduction by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.

From the moment when, as a little girl,…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Red Dust Road as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

My heart leaps when I think of this story.

It’s magical. poignant, deeply felt, and not always the easiest journey, but a beautiful, heartfelt one, as she seeks out her biological parents – a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father – and their descendants.

To me, she’s a sweet, radiant, nervous shining light of hope. I felt I was right next to her as she went on her search. It was like a detective story. She had quite a team of people helping her, and I was on that support team too. I felt like she allowed me to climb…

From Eileen's list on memoirs with heartwarming travels.

Jackie and her brother were adopted by a loving working-class family in Glasgow. They were communists and thoughtful about the adoption process. Jackie becomes a beloved poet and a wonderful public performer. She was recently made the Poet Laureate of Scotland – The Scots Makar. In this book, she traces her childhood and her quest to meet her father in Lagos and to discover her biological parentage and story. It’s a story of belonging and of not belonging. Of finding, fitting, and not fitting. It moves and uplifts us.

From Susie's list on contemporary memoirs by women.

If you love Red Dust Road...

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German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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