‘This remarkable meditation on beautiful, human bodies formed by the violence of slavery and by colonial shame resists categorisation, even as it shows up the ways in which categories of race and identity are no more than empty methods of social control. Reading this book I felt a profound sense of relief: that someone as wise as Tessa McWatt had the compassion and courage to write it. Though she doesn’t spare us, her ancestors or herself, as she travels from British Guiana to China, India and Scotland, we must go with her: and realise the power of recovering female lineage, and realise that there is no centre, except the one we ourselves can make with all the various stories we contain. It is a deeply moving, urgent and important book.’

Preti Taneja

‘Heartstopping and wise, exquisitely written, compellingly told, Shame on Me rises to a crescendo of such beauty and grace in its final chapter — a call to activism and resistance — that it left me breathless with the intensity of my own listening.’

Rebecca Stott

‘Eloquent and moving.’

The Guardian