Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Commentator, The Independent

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown came to the UK in 1972 from Uganda after completing her undergraduate degree at Makerere University where she was awarded an exceptional first class degree in English.  She went to Oxford as a post-graduate student and was awarded an M.Phil in literature in1975. She is a journalist who has written for The Guardian, Observer, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Evening Standard,  the Mail  and other newspapers and is now a regular columnist on The Independent and London’s Evening Standard. She is also a radio and television broadcaster and author of several books. Her book, No Place Like Home, well received by critics, was an autobiographical account of a twice removed immigrant. From 1996 to 2001 she was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research which published True Colours on the role of government on racial attitudes. Tony Blair launched the book in March 1999. She is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre. In 2000 she published, Who Do We Think We Are?  published in the US too, an acclaimed book on the state of the British nation and another book, After Multiculturalism which looks at the globalised future. She advises various key institutions on race matters. She is also a regular international public speaker in Britain, other European countries, North America and Asian nations. In 2001 came the publication of the paperback of Who Do we Think We Are? and Mixed Feelings, a book on mixed race Britons which has  been praised by all those who have reviewed it to date. In June 1999, she received an honorary degree from the Open University for her contributions to social justice. She is the President of the Institute of Family Therapy.

In 2001 she was appointed an MBE for services to journalism in the new year’s honours list. In July 2003 Liverpool John Moore’s University made her an Honorary Fellow. In 2003 she returned her MBE as a protest against the new imperial and illegal war in Iraq. In September 2004, she was awarded an honorary degree by the Oxford Brookes University. In April 2004, her film on Islam for Channel 4 won an award and in May 2004, she received the EMMA award for best print journalist for her columns in the Independent. In September 2004, a collection of her journalistic writings, Some of My Best Friends Are was published by Politicos. In 2005/6 she went on stage with her one woman show, written and performed by her, commissioned and directed by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of their new work festival. In 2006 the show had two London runs and went to other locations. It was highly praised by the Times, Independent and local paper critics. In 2007 the show was taken to India – to great acclaim. In 2005, she was voted the 10th most influential black/Asian woman in the country in a poll and in another she was among the most powerful Asian media professionals in the UK.  In 2007, she was appointed Hon, Visiting Professor in Journalism at Cardiff University. In 2008, she was appointed Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln and Visiting Professor at the University of the West of England. In 2008 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by York St John University.  Her new book, The Settler’s Cookbook, a food memoir on East African Asians was published in the spring of 2009 and was book of the week on BBC Radio4. It has been described by critics as ‘groundbreaking’ ‘wonderful’ and ‘elegiac’. She is married and has a grown up son and teenage daughter.