As a five-year-old George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana - the first African country to attain independence from the British Empire. This is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of the atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight, and outrage. His viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of his younger self on arrival in Ghana, the wonder inspired by his first impressions of Africa, and the affection with which he still regards stories of his early family life.

A sense of possibility lingers, even though the book is full of uncomfortable truths and the author tempers his personal insights with his integrity and sense of obligation in his role as a writer and reporter. He regards Africa not only as a group of nations or a vast continent, but as a site of an epic of individual pride and suffering.