Don't Touch My Hair

Emma Dabiri’s groundbreaking Don’t Touch My Hair is a scintillating, intellectual investigation into black women and the very serious business of our hair, as it pertains to race, gender, social codes, tradition, culture, cosmology, maths, politics, philosophy and history, and also the role of hairstyles in pre-colonial Africa – Bernardine Evaristo * The Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year *
FASCINATING, educational, personal, humble and engaging. I urge you to read it! – Marian Keyes
I’ve been pleasantly engrossed this autumn in Emma Dabiri’s nonfiction debut Don’t Touch My Hair. Part memoir, part spiky, thoroughly researched socio-political analysis, it delves deep into the painful realities and history of follicular racism – Diana Evans * Observer Books of the Year *
Both a richly researched cultural history and a voyage to empowerment. – Colin Grant * Guardian *
Sensational * Women’s Health *
Pulled together with meticulous research, Don’t Touch My Hair is an unmissable read by a writer who’s set to become a household name – Francesca Brown * Stylist *
The first book from one of Ireland’s brightest literary talents, Don’t Touch My Hair brilliantly deconstructs western views of everything from beauty to social value systems, and even to our understanding of time, all through the lens of how African cultures value hair. * Hotpress *
Groundbreaking…Her sources are rich, diverse and sometimes heartbreaking. Some books make us feel seen and for me, that is what Don’t Touch My Hair does. I would urge everyone to read it – Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff * Guardian *
An excellent and far reaching book…a call to arms for black African culture * Irish Times *
A powerful and arrestingly relatable account of the rich history of Afro hair that seamlessly interweaves her personal perspective with meticulously researched historical facts * Metro *

Emma Dabiri is a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS, a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths and author of the Sunday Times bestseller What White People Can Do Next and Don’t Touch My Hair. She has presented several television and radio programmes including BBC Radio 4’s critically-acclaimed documentaries ‘Journeys into Afro-futurism’ and ‘Britain’s Lost Masterpieces’.

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