Poverty Safari

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Poverty Safari

By: Darren McGarvey

Narrated by: Darren McGarvey

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About this listen

The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.
Winner of the Orwell Prize.
Named the most 'Rebellious Read of the 21st Century' in a Scottish Book Trust poll.

Brutally honest and fearless, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain, and will change how you think about poverty.

Darren McGarvey, award-winning author and presenter of BBC series The State We're In, has experienced poverty and its devastating effects first-hand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry . . .

So he invites you to come on a safari of sorts. But not the kind where the wildlife is surveyed from a safe distance. This book takes you inside the experience of poverty to show how the pressures really feel and how hard their legacy is to overcome.

Arguing that both the political left and right misunderstand poverty as it is actually lived, McGarvey sets out what everybody – including himself – could do to change things.

'Another cry of anger from a working class that feels the pain of a rotten, failing system. Its value lies in the strength it will add to the movement for change.' – Ken Loach, director of Kes

Politics & Government

Poverty & Homelessness

Social Classes & Economic Disparity

Social Sciences

Sociology

Inspiring

Thought-Provoking

Africa

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Critic reviews

Nothing less than an intellectual and spiritual rehab manual for the progressive left. (Irvine Welsh)

Poverty Safari is an important and powerful book. (Nicola Sturgeon)

Poverty Safari documents in vivid, piercing and frequently funny prose, the reality of growing up in Pollok and the consequences of a chaotic family life (Stephen McGinty)

Poverty Safari is 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)

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)

Raw, powerful and challenging. (Kezia Dugdale)

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)

Utterly compelling. (Ian Rankin)

Most relevant

At points felt the author suffered from verbal diarea, but the story is brilliant and you need to listen to the entire book to understand the context. You can feel his anger and frustration of the plight of the poor and how he is trying to address the issue.