"Underpinned by her personal journey, this moving, illuminating memoir unpacks the weight names bear on our lives."
“What's in a name?” This Shakespeare-coined question lies at the heart of Camilla Balshaw’s Named — a thought-provoking memoir of the author’s exploration of her own identity through the lens of a complex relationship with her own name.
And the answer to that question, as Balshaw reveals in eloquently engaging style, is that everything is in a name. As she writes in the Introduction, “Our names are entwined with our identity. They are repeated in countless transactions, conversations and written correspondence…Without them, how would we function as a society?” But beyond that, names are tied to our very being, to who we are — the author, for example, grew up with an entirely different name, and she’s been named differently through her life.
Framed through sharing her own story — growing up with a Jamaican mother, and estranged from her Nigerian father — Balshaw also shines a light on naming practices in a diversity of cultures, showing how names interplay with class and race, and impact our chance of social mobility.
In short, Named is a touching, enlightening book for readers who relish finding fresh ways to view the world through non-fiction.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Other Genres: |
'Gutsy, entertaining and thought-provoking...A marvellous book.' Diana Evans
What's in a name? Everything we carry, and everything we are.
Our names are a shadow we carry around with us. They are part of who we are. Our names are a marker of our self-identity and our sense of self. Our names have the power to shock. They have the power to heal, and they have the power to trigger conversations around race, class, social mobility and belonging. But what is a name? What do our names tell us about ourselves? And why do they matter?
Named is a fascinating exploration of names, global naming conventions and identity politics woven into a moving, personal narrative about the finding of family and self. At the intersection of memoir and social and cultural history it is a truly fascinating book about the seemingly ordinary and every day.
The author's own narrative about her estrangement from her Nigerian father, the grapples with her Jamaican mother and her journey towards identity is woven through the chapters making it an engaging and intimate investigation of what makes us who we are.
Named features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Philosophy of language, Sociolinguistics, Research and information: general, Society and culture: general, Sociology and anthropology, Politics and government, Biographies & Autobiographies, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Biography: general, Biography: social media
Named is available in Paperback, Hardback
Named was written by Camilla Balshaw and published by Bedford Square Publishers
Named has 304 pages
£9.89
