On today’s show, I’m speaking with journalist and historian, Lucy Fulford about her non-fiction book, The Exiled. 

In The Exiled, Lucy delves into understanding the Asian expulsion from Uganda in 1972, which saw 80,000 South Asian Ugandans being given just 90 days to leave the country, by the dictator, Idi Amin. She goes way back, uncovering how the British empire led to so many South Asians finding home in Uganda, but how it also impacted the structure of Ugandan society and the impact on black Ugandans. The book is a mixture of Lucy’s own family history, interviews she has undertaken, and copious amounts of research. The book takes us from pre-1972 Uganda, to the expulsion itself and beyond 1972, as countless families in the UK and elsewhere strived to build a new life. This is a really thorough and nuanced exploration of that part of history, also sprinkled with Lucy’s own musings on race, identity. 

Lucy is an experienced multimedia journalist and filmmaker whose work centres on migration, conflict and climate.

After graduating from the University of Bristol with a first-class honours degree in History – writing a dissertation on the Rwandan genocide – she studied media law, shorthand and reporting with the NCTJ and worked as a senior reporter and acting editor of a press agency, covering breaking news, crime and courts for the national press in London. Growing up between cultures has led to an interest in exploring identity and in her book, The exiled, she explores the generational legacy of forced migration, inspired in part by her family history.

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