Bonnie Greer is an American-British playwright, novelist and critic, known for Siren Spirits (1995), White Men Are Cracking Up (1996) and Horizon (1964). She’s a Verity Bargate Award winner, was named as one of the 300 Public Intellectuals in the UK by the Observer in 2010 and appointed as an officer of the British Empire by The Queen.

She has served as deputy chair of the British Museum and on the boards of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London Film School and Theatre Royal. She was Chancellor of Kingston University and continues to be a regular contributor to a wide range of news and arts programming.  

She lives in London’s West End but grew up on the South Side of Chicago, the eldest of seven children next to the railway dreaming of what it would be like to get on board and see the world. 

Here, she describes to Max how she’s driven by her fear of being ‘phoney’ which is rooted in her father’s experience of living under segregation in Mississippi.