Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Alibhai-Brown's mother was born in East Africa and her father moved there from British India in the 1920s. Born into the Ugandan Asian community in Kampala in 1949, she belongs to the Nizari branch of the Ismaili faith. After graduating in English literature from Makerere University in 1972, she left Uganda for Britain, along with her niece, Farah Damji, shortly before the expulsion of Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin and completed a Master of Philosophy degree in literature at Linacre College, Oxford in 1975. After working as a teacher, particularly with immigrants and refugees, she moved into journalism in her mid-thirties. She is married to Colin Brown, Chairman of the Consumer Services Panel of the Financial Services Authority; the couple have a daughter and Alibhai-Brown has a son from a previous marriage.

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