Ujjal Dosanjh

A midnight's child of poor rural India, Ujjal Dosanjh emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1964 at the age of eighteen, and spent nearly four years making crayons, car parts and shunting trains while he attended night school and learned English by listening to BBC Radio. He moved to Canada in 1968, to the west coast, where he pulled lumber in a sawmill for a few years, eventually earning a B.A from Simon Fraser University in 1973 and then his law degree from the University of British Columbia three years later. He practiced law for many years, and was a social justice advocate who fought for the rights of farm and domestic workers. After many years as a Member of the Legislative Assembly he became Attorney General and then Premier of British Columbia, the first person of Indian descent to hold these offices anywhere in the country.

This is a deeply personal and thoughtful memoir of Dosanjh’s journey from his beloved India to the upper echelons of Canadian politics, a story that is both wise and compelling, about a man passionate about social justice and democratic process who continues to rail against injustice and corruption wherever it is happening in the world.