LSBU is delighted to host an evening with author Mike Phillips!

Penguin Books have commissioned Booker prize winner Bernadine Evaristo to create a list (Black Britain: Writing Back) of ‘lost’/’rediscovered’ Black British authors – and one of these titles is a book called ‘The Dancing Face‘ written by a ‘pioneer of Black British writing’ – Mike Phillips.

The book is very topical – being about an art theft of a Benin mask that raises arguments about the legacy of imperialism, the nature of identity and questions of reparations and as part of its re-publication it comes with an original essay by Bernadine Evaristo, placing it in the context of black British writing.

The re-publication of the book and this opportunity to explore its themes with the author come at a time when we are reflecting on changes (or not) in our society one year on from Black Lives Matter and also at a point when we are starting to develop a university strategy for decolonising the curriculum.