The jigsaw can never, ever be completed . . . You are made already, though you don't properly know it, you are made up from a mixture of myth and gene. You are part fable, part porridge.

When Jackie Kay was a little girl, there came a moment when she realized her skin was a different colour from that of her mum and dad. Growing up in Glasgow, her childhood was one filled with love, and yet later, pregnant with her own son, she decided she needed to find her birth parents. So Kay set out on a remarkable journey from Scotland to Nigeria, a journey full of unexpected twists and turns that forced her to confront what it takes to find yourself, and what it is that makes us who we are.

Jackie Kay is one of Scotland's most celebrated voices, and Red Dust Road, her beloved classic memoir, is a story about family, inheritance and identity. In the end, Kay's journey comes full circle, and proves that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that what triumphs, ultimately, is love.

'Wonderful . . . a book with resolution, determination and honesty' Scotland on Sunday

'A clear-eyed, witty and unsentimental account of the push and pull between nature and nurture. Happiness shines through' Sunday Times

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. A poet, novelist and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children. Her novel, Trumpet, won the Guardian Fiction Prize. She has published three collections of stories with Picador, Why Don't You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; two poetry collections, Fiere and Bantam; and her memoir, Red Dust Road. From 2016-21 she was the third modern Makar, National Poet for Scotland. She lives in Manchester and is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Salford.