Amrit Wilson

Amrit Wilson (born 1941)^[1] is a British-Indian^[2] writer, journalist and activist who since the 1970s has focused on issues of race and gender in Britain and South Asian politics.^[3] Her 1978 book Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain^[4] won the Martin Luther King Award, and remains an influential feminist book.^[2] Her other book publications include Dreams, Questions, Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2006), and as a journalist she has been published in outlets including Ceasefire Magazine,^[5] Media Diversified,^[6] openDemocracy^[7] and The Guardian.^[8][9]

Amrit Wilson
Born	1941 (age 83–84) India
Occupation(s)	Writer, journalist and activist
Notable work	Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (1978)

Background

Wilson grew up in India and came to Britain as a student in 1961. She became a freelance journalist in 1974, and was active as an anti-racist militant in the 1970s.^[10] Wilson's book Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain, first published in 1978 and reprinted 40 years later,^[11] has been described as "[c]hallenging the views of South Asian women as weak, submissive, one-dimensional stereotypes" and as having "cleared the space for Asian women to speak for themselves".^[12] Wilson was a founder member of Awaz, the UK's first Asian feminist collective, and was active in OWAAD, the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (1978–82).^[3][13] She was formerly chair of Imkaan, a national network of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee women's refuges and services for women facing violence, and is a founder member of South Asia Solidarity Group.^[7][14]

She also was Senior Lecturer in Women's Studies/South Asian Studies at Luton University,^[15] and has carried an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI).^[16]

In April 2024, Wilson revealed that she had had her OCI card withdrawn by the Indian government and is unable to travel to India after having been accused of "anti-India activities" and "detrimental propaganda against the Indian government."^[17]

Selected bibliography

• Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (1978; second edition Daraja Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1988832012)
• The Challenge Road: Women and the Eritrean Revolution (The Red Sea Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0932415714)
• Dreams, Questions, Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2006; ISBN 9780745318479)
• The Threat of Liberation (Pluto Press, 2013; ISBN 9781849649407)