Sufferah: The Memoir of a Brixton Reggae-Head (Akashic Books), by Alex Wheatle, chronicles the extraordinary life of one of the most renowned Black British writers. Wheatle’s account of his traumatic childhood, tumultuous upbringing, and salvation through reggae music is candid and unsparing. Sufferah does not shy away from the entrenched racism and xenophobia embedded in British culture and politics: in writing of his personal experience of the April 1981 Brixton uprising, Wheatle employs a music-diary style to describe his participation and subsequent imprisonment.