HARRIET SERGEANT
I am a journalist and author. The impact of racism and the relationship between the races has defined my professional and personal life. My first book published in 1985 investigated apartheid in South Africa. My last, Among the Hoods published by Faber in 2012, describes my now twelve year friendship with a south London gang. I have written six Think Tank reports. Wasted – the betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys was an in-depth investigation into why we fail these young men. My work is based on academic research and extensive interviews.
I have written for the Sunday Times, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Spectator and Standpoint. I am a regular contributor to TV and radio and have appeared on Any Questions, Question Time, Newsnight, and Today amongst others as well as the Sky Paper Review on a routine basis. I was recently invited by Grayson Perry to take part in a debate on British identity at the National Portrait Gallery.
My latest book is a thriller written with Marlon Campbell.
RECENT WORK
Parrots Over Babylon
by Harriet Sergeant and Marlon Campbell
Parrots Over Babylon is a mystery thriller and a love story. London’s first female Mayor is forced to team up with a gangster to discover who murdered her lover.
THE STORY BEHIND PARROTS OVER BABYLON
HARRIET Marlon and I are from a different class, a different generation and a different culture. Writing this book together has changed both our lives.
MARLON In the environment I grew up in, everyone is trying to survive by any means. I got kidnapped when I was five. When I was eight my friend and I were caught up in a skirmish. He died right next to me, his head smashed into car windshield. This kind of thing is normal and it hardens us. Where I come from, when people get shot, we are not shocked. We ask what make of gun it was. Since writing this book with Harriet, I have realised there is a different world out there. Most of my friends fall into despair. It was tough at the time but this book took over my life. It saved me.
Inspiration for Sugar in the barber shop speculating on Jessica
Inspiration for Gillie 
Inspiration for Patrick DJ-ing at a Brixton Clash with a young Jermaine and Sugar
Marlon and I working on the book in my kitchen 
The gun twelve year old Sugar found under the laurel hedge after Patrick’s murder. 
Marlon and Me
This is the website of Harriet Sergeant – Journalist, Author and Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies, an independent Think Tank.
Email Harriet Sergeant
harriet@harrietsergeant.com
Literary Agent
Annabel Merullo at Peters Fraser & Dunlop
Tel: +44 (0)207 344 1000
Harriet Sergeant 