Celebrate Windrush Day with this free lunchtime event.

This event takes place in the British Library. It is a drop in-event, and tickets are not required. Please arrive before 13:00 to help ensure seating.

Author Yvonne Bailey-Smith joins us for conversation and readings from her debut novel The Day I Fell Off My Island.  A compelling coming-of-age story, it tells the account of how a young girl’s life in 1960s Jamaica was upended with a sudden move to London.

Yvonne Bailey-Smith was born in Jamaica and emigrated to the UK in 1969 when she was a teenager. She trained as a social worker before becoming a psychotherapist. She is the mother of three children: novelist Zadie Smith; actor, musician and children’s book author Ben Bailey Smith and lyricist and writer LucSkyz.

Praise for The Day I Fell Off My Island: 

‘An evocative picture of a childhood in Jamaica, full of detail and atmosphere, enriched by the use of Jamaican patois... This immersive coming-of-age novel has themes of family, abuse, racism, mental illness and loss threaded through its pages’ – Daily Mail

‘It’s a compelling coming-of-age tale, written with wisdom, emotion and sincerity’ – Culture Fly

‘An absorbing insight into the sense of loss that immigration can invoke’ – New European

‘With an ear for the ribald patois of her grandmother tongue, Yvonne Bailey-Smith brings to bear on her debut book insights from a long career as a family therapist, juggling laughter and tears with every page we turn’ – Margaret Busby

Image of Yvonne Bailey-Smith by Suki Dhanda 

Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. 

This event will not be live-streamed.

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