Travelling the 'Red Dust Road': My connection with Jackie Kay

I can't remember when I first read 'Trumpet' by Jackie Kay, but it's a book I never forgot. I think I was still in school. Years later, it almost felt like a dream. As a young person, reading was my pastime. I would spend hours digesting hundreds of books sitting on the floor of my bedroom, my back against the radiator to keep warm while trying not to give myself third degree burns.

Despite Jackie Kay's fame as a poet, my first and most significant memory was reading her as a novelist. 'Trumpet' was her debut novel. The book is about a black transgender jazz musician. As a young person, I don't think I could fully grasp what was going on with respect to gender, but I loved it. It felt like a river washing over me.

Because Kay was more well known as a poet, it took me a while to connect that book with her. In fact, it took me a while to be sure that book was even real. But I found it again and now it sits proudly on my bookshelf. It was one of the first QTIPOC (Queer, Trans, and Intersex People of Colour) stories or characters that I was aware of. As a queer and genderqueer person of colour myself, it feels incredible now to know that this existed in 1998. I have no doubt that it impacted me and shaped me as a person. I have been fascinated by gender since my teens.

For me, there's a thread between 'Trumpet' and 'Orlando' by Virginia Woolf. And when I was a bit older, I read a lot of Jeanette Winterson and loved the experimentation of gender in her works. A relatively unknown work of hers, called 'Written on the Body', stands out. All three books have an ethereal quality, almost magical realism. As the reader, you're never quite sure what is happening or true and it doesn’t even matter. The authors capture the joy and fluidity that one can have with gender.

When thinking about these stories now, they make complete sense. Yet I also dread to think what the reaction would be to such stories coming out now, in today's climate. These stories were so important to me and my own sense of self. The confidence and fluidity I have in my gender performance and identity are certainly in part thanks to these early books.

My mother was always fan of Jackie Kay and I remember her talking to me about her. I just didn't have much context for her at the time. It was only after moving to Scotland and studying English Literature that I rediscovered her, more as a person than as a writer. It was at this time that I had started becoming more politically engaged too. Especially around race and racism.

When I first moved to Scotland in 2006, I wasn't around many other people of colour. As a mixed-race person, I was very used to fitting in with white people. I started to reflect more on my experiences as a non-white person and it was through my therapy training that my reflections became more critical. I was the only non-white and non-straight person on my course. A significant part of the training involved thinking about who we were as people and how we related to each other. Race and sexuality were barely brought up at all. When I tried to raise either, it was quickly shut down by the group.

At that time, identity politics were not acceptable discussions to be having in therapy circles (thankfully, that has started to change). I cannot understate the importance of Jackie Kay to a mixed-race queer person in Scotland, like me. I don't fit neatly into many boxes. I am not quite a girl or a boy. I am not white or Asian. I am not straight or gay. I am not English or Scottish. I feel connected to Jackie Kay in other ways too. Her biological mother was a nurse, and her father would have been part of the Windrush generation. This is similar for my parents, who met when both were nurses. And my father was also part of Windrush.

Jackie Kay represents these identities, complexities and dualities in herself as a person but also in her work. My connections to her are not solely based on this, though. We also have a shared (perceived) analysis of the world. She holds political values which I closely align with. Her adopted father was involved in the Communist Party and in activism around nuclear disarmament. My parents were both on the left and involved in similar activism themselves. Their political values are ones I grew up with and continue to share.

Reading Jackie Kay's 'Red Dust Road', I notice even more strange coincidences that tie us together. Her birth mother shares the same name as my own mother. Both married a man from the same region (in my case Malaysia and in hers Singapore). Her birth mother's husband shares a name with my brother.

I notice I have a strong desire to move closer to Jackie Kay, to see myself in her. This is something new and different to how I read most books. As a young person I read for escapism, to get away from my life, from myself. But when reading Jackie Kay I feel like I'm searching for myself in her writing. In fact, 'Red Dust Road' is all about searching for self. An often endless, and potentially impossible, task for mixed-race people.

Jackie Kay is creating a road which I see myself walking down too. Albeit on a different timeline and in a different world. Just knowing the road is there and being able to see it in front of me gives me a sense of connection. Not just with Jackie Kay, but all mixed-race, queer people trying to figure out how to be in a world still desperately clinging to binaries.

Something else that resonates with me is how Jackie Kay writes in a Scottish dialect. As someone who now considers Scotland their home, this is deeply significant to me. In 'Red Dust Road', she talks of her family holidays around Scotland, naming places I recognise or have been to myself. Threaded through her work is a deep love and appreciation for Scotland as a place. It feels right that her body of work now resides at the National Library of Scotland.

Jackie Kay's work is both a demonstration and an invitation for people of colour to be part of Scottish culture. This feels echoed by her personality. While I haven't met her in person, everything she does expresses warmth, excitement and welcome. She has such a presence. I feel connected to her in a way she is likely to never know.

Jackie Kay represents someone who carries and lives the values that I share. As someone who proudly doesn't fit neatly into various 'identity boxes', I can see myself in her and her work. The National Library of Scotland acquiring Jackie Kay's archive importantly secures her in Scotland's cultural memory, just as she holds Scotland and other great writers and poets of this land in her cultural memory too.

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh and brought up in Glasgow. She is the author of, among other books, 'The Adoption Papers', which won the Forward Prize, 'Red Dust Road', winner of the Scottish Book of the Year Award, 'Trumpet', and the Costa-shortlisted 'Fiere'. She was the third Makar, or National Poet for Scotland, (2016–2021) and is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Salford.

Ellie Muniandy (they/she) is a therapist, supervisor, trainer and equalities expert. They work with a range of different organisations and projects.