Dean Atta: Person Unlimited

We are incredibly lucky to have the legendary Dean Atta, poet and novelist, at Juno Books talking to the fantastic Akeem Balogun about his new book: Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body.

“Years ago, within living memory, this book would have been illegal and Dean

could have been imprisoned for writing it. All memoir is a witness statement.

Dean Atta, speak your truth and say it loud!” LEMN SISSAY

From choirboy to drag act, grandson to mentor, poet to lover, Dean Atta has

played many roles in his life. In this formally inventive, candid and courageous

book, he explores what he has carried in his body: wins and losses, shame and

pride, pain and joy. Dean also investigates how radical self-acceptance and a

willingness to abide with discomfort open up the possibility of a life lived beyond

definition: a person unlimited.

- A bold and vulnerable account of Dean’s relationship with his race, his

sexuality and himself, Person Unlimited asks us to confront how willing we are

to see – and accept – ourselves in full: the good, the bad and the ugly; our

past and our present.

Dean Atta is an award-winning author and performance poet. He won the 2012 London Poetry Award and was named as one of the most influential LGBT people by the Independent on Sunday Pink List. He has written two YA novel-in-verses which includes The Black Flamingo which was a top-selling debut of 2020, and was awarded the prestigious Stonewall Book Award and the Carnegie Shadowers Choice Award 2020. Person Unlimited is his non-fiction debut.
Akeem Balogun's writing has appeared in multiple publications, and he has created project-themed stories for artists, projects and literature festivals. His debut collection of stories, The Storm, won the Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award. He was also one of the winners of Daniel Goldsmith Associates’ First Novel Prize in 2021.

Host or Publisher Juno Books