The history of Tracey Emin's Sudanese great-grandfather is fascinating: Slavery was still part of life in Sudan in the 1860s when Abdullah, 13, went fishing by a river with his sister, 12. Their father was a wealthy landowner & the children thought they were safe on his estate

But slave traders dragged them screaming into their boats.
The father and his people gave chase on horseback. The horses collapsed, they were riding so hard. It was too far. It was the north of Sudan. They took them to a port in Cyprus, probably Larnaca, and sold them at auction

Although Abdullah took care of his younger sister on the ship, they were separated at the slave auction & lost touch. Abdullah, who was a tall and striking lad, was purchased for a high price by a wealthy Greek-Cypriot trader who soon entrusted his slave with taking camel trains

and horses around the island trading goods. But the trader was a Christian and was adamant that his new slave should convert from Islam. He tried to force him to give up his faith, hanging him upside down in the heat from a tree all day, but he failed to convert him.

Abdullah was later sold to a Turkish trader who accepted his faith & treated him well. After years of service, he was given his freedom &set up as a merchant himself. He lived near Larnaca & became so successful that he built his village’s first mosque & married a local midwife

The couple had 7 children & dozens of grandchildren. After WW2, many of them emigrated to Britain where they became successful members of the Turkish-Cypriot community. Emin’s father Enver became a hotelier.

“You could see Abdullah’s features in a lot of my relatives. Some of them are very tall and very dark. You could see it with Enver, Tracey’s dad. He was black,” said Baroness Hussein-Ece.

In America, both Tracey Emin and Baroness Hussein-Ece would be considered Black but here they are not. Identity is so slippery.