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Before Them, We is a photographic project by Ruth Sutoy\xe9 and also the title of an anthology of poems in which a group of poets of African descent reflect upon the lives of their grandparents and elders and the inter-generational relationships in the families they went on to establish. Ruth and co-editor and poet Jacob Sam-La Rose talk to Matthew Sweet alongside Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson - the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants - who has just published a memoir exploring his early life in a working-class family in 1940s Manchester where he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce before becoming a writer.

Mother's Boy by Howard Jacobson is out now\nYou can find photographs from Before Them, We on https://www.ruthsutoye.com/ and the poetry anthology is published by Flipped Eye.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod