Poverty Safari
Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass
by Darren McGarvey
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Pub Date 2 Nov 2017 | Archive Date 3 Aug 2018
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Description
People from deprived communities all around Britain feel misunderstood and unheard. Darren McGarvey aka Loki gives voice to their feelings and concerns, and the anger that is spilling over. Anger he says we will have to get used to, unless things change.
He invites you to come on a safari of sorts. A Poverty Safari. But not the sort where the indigenous population is surveyed from a safe distance for a time, before the window on the community closes and everyone gradually forgets about it.
I know the hustle and bustle of high-rise life, the dark and dirty stairwells, the temperamental elevators that smell like urine and wet dog fur, the grumpy concierge, the apprehension you feel as you enter or leave the building, especially at night. I know that sense of being cut off from the world, despite having such a wonderful view of it through a window in the sky; that feeling of isolation, despite being surrounded by hundreds of other people above, below and either side of you. But most of all, I understand the sense that you are invisible, despite the fact that your community can be seen for miles around and is one of the most prominent features of the city skyline.
Advance Praise
Nothing less than an intellectual and spiritual rehab manual for the progressive left. Irvine Welsh
Part memoir, part polemic, this is a savage, wise and witty tour-de-force. An unflinching account of the realities of systemic poverty, Poverty Safari lays down challenges to both the left and right. It is hard to think of a more timely, powerful or necessary book. J.K. Rowling
A blistering analysis of the issues facing the voiceless and the social mechanisms that hobble progress, all wrapped up in an unput-downable memoir. - Denise Mina
Raw, powerful and challenging. - Kezia Dugdale
A scan of the injuries poverty leaves in Britain, which manages to be humane, angry and wise all at the same time. - Nick Cohen
The ignorance class division fosters and 'our assumptions about the people on the other side of the divide' are Darren McGarvey’s themes. His Poverty Safariis one of the best accounts of working-class life I have read. McGarvey is a rarity: a working-class writer who has fought to make the middle-class world hear what he has to say. - Nick Cohen in The Guardian, 23rd September 2017
If The Road To Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey's book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created. - Paul Mason
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781912147038 |
| PRICE | £7.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
Angela A, Educator
This book dares to lift and illuminate the rock, under which the legacy of Austerity and Poverty has been allowed to hide for decades. No subject is too 'touchy' for this remarkable author. From Child Abuse to Racism, Addiction to Apathy. A call to both Left and Right and more importantly the Working Class themselves, to re-engage within their own Communities, on their own terms and to their own agenda. Buy this book. Buy a copy for a friend. Buy a copy and gift it to your MP.
Suzanne A, Reviewer
This book was very well written. Angry in parts - but understandably so. I have listened to this author in interview and he presents as extremely clever, and articulate his views in a forthright no nonsense manner. The reader is taken to a deeper awareness of the underlying causes of poverty - options which "could/might exist" to eradicate it - the very real reasons why eradication is probably not possible - and overwhelmingly the adverse effects of child hood poverty on the majority of lives it touches. A very thought provoking publication, if this description is not too trite for the gravitas of the subject. There are many to whom I would recommend this book.
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