This is the Place to Be

A memoir in the form of a series of sharply etched vignettes that shift astonishingly in time and mood, and range in place from Africa and the US to the streets of London. It demonstrates that no moment is isolated, and that privilege, conflict, race and gender are inherent in all our encounters, from the banal to the extreme Lara Pawson’s This Is the Place to Be is a stark, compassionate and troubling text that summons a fragmentary autobiography, circling experiences from her growing up in England and her time as a reporter covering civil wars in Angola and Ivory Coast. She deals with big questions through an intimate mosaic of lived experiences – the blank, funny, awful, gentle shards that remain in memory years after events have taken place – returning her again and again to the themes of identity, violence, race, class, sexuality and the everyday lives of people across several continents.