Homing Empire

Family memoirs are a special kind of historical offering. They have the power to tell fine-grained stories of the past, of epochal events and intricately connect them to the lived present of the author who reconstructs them. Done well, memoirs people the past, putting their reader in touch with affects, intentions, and relations that animate history in palpable and revelatory ways. This essay offers a biographically inspired meditation on Hazel V. Carby's memoir, 'Imperial Intimacies'. Delving into Carby's deft account of intimately interwoven Jamaican and British histories, I reflect on the significance of fatherhood in her account and my life: in the status of surnames, the intimate care of hands and the stories we tell our children about empire.