This is London

This is the new London: an immigrant city. Over one-third of Londoners were born abroad, with half arriving since the millennium. This has utterly transformed the capital, for better and for worse.

Ben Judah is an acclaimed foreign correspondent, but here he turns his reporter’s gaze on home, immersing himself in the hidden world of London’s immigrants to reveal the city in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers and witch-doctors. From the backrooms of its mosques, Tube tunnels and nightclubs to the frontlines of its streets, Judah has supped with oligarchs and spent nights sleeping rough, worked on building sites and talked business with prostitutes; he’s heard stories of heartbreaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion.

This is London explodes fossilised myths and offers a fresh, exciting portrait of what it’s like to live, work, fall in love, raise children, grow old and die in London now. Simultaneously intimate and epic, this is a compulsive and deeply sympathetic book on a dizzying world city from one of our brightest new writers.

Author Biography

Ben Judah was born in London. He has travelled widely in Russia, Central Asia and the Levant. His writing has been featured widely, including in the New York Times, the Evening Standard, the Financial Times and Standpoint. In 2016, Ben was chosen as one of Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 in European media. His first book, Fragile Empire, was published by Yale University Press in 2013.