Emma Dabiri

Emma Dabiri is an Irish-Nigerian author, academic, and broadcaster. Her debut book, Don't Touch My Hair, was first published in 2019.

Emma Dabiri
Born
Dublin, Ireland
NationalityIrish
OccupationAuthor, academic, broadcaster

Biography

Dabiri was born in Dublin to a white Irish mother and a Nigerian Yoruba father. After spending her early years in Atlanta, Georgia, her family returned to Dublin when Dabiri was five years of age.[1] She says of her experience growing up isolated and as the target of frequent racism informed her perspective (2019).[2] After school she moved to London to study African Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, her academic career leading to broadcast work, including co-presenting BBC Four's Britain's Lost Masterpieces, Channel 4 documentaries such as Is Love Racist?, and a radio show about Afrofuturism among others.[3]

Dabiri is a frequent contributor to print and online media, including The Guardian, Irish Times, Dublin Inquirer, Vice, and others.[4] She has also published in academic journals. Dabiri's outspokenness on issues of race and racism has caused her to have to deal with extreme "trollism" and racist abuse online. She says of this that "it's just words" and the racism she grew up with fortified her to deal with it.[5]

Dabiri lives in London, where she is completing her PhD while also teaching and continuing her broadcast work. She is married and has two children.[2]

Don't Touch My Hair

In her book, Emma combines memoir with social commentary and philosophy. She moves beyond the personal to examine African hair in wider contexts, with the book travelling across geographical space and through time to take in pre-colonial Africa up to modern day Western society. Throughout she writes that African hair represents a complex visual language.[6]

Publications
  • Don't Touch My Hair, London: Allen Lane (an imprint of Penguin), 2020. Hardback ISBN 9780241308349 Ebook ISBN 9780141986296

References
  1. Dabiri, Emma (27 April 2019). "I'm Irish but not white. Why is that still a problem 100 years after the Easter Rising?". Irish Times. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  2. Ganatra, Shilpa (27 April 2019). "Emma Dabiri: 'I wouldn't want my children to experience what I did in Ireland'". Irish Times. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  3. "Irish writer and actor among the rising stars of 2019". Irish Central. 11 January 2019. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  4. "Emma Dabiri". Muck Rack. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  5. Lynch, Donal (13 August 2018). "Emma Dabiri: The Diaspora Diva on trolls, modelling and growing up black in Dublin". Independent. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  6. de Waal, Kit (27 April 2019). "Don't Touch My Hair review: A call to arms for black African culture". Irish Times. Retrieved 29 April 2019.

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