Michaela Coel's debut book to be released this autumn

Michaela Coel's first book, Misfits: A Personal Manifesto, is set to debut this Autumn, and will explore the topics Coel covered in her McTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018.

In the lecture, the I May Destroy You creator defines the term misfit as having "dual notions".

"A misfit is one who looks at life differently,” Coel begins. “Many however, are made into misfits because life looks at them differently; the UK’s black, Asian, and ginger communities for example. The term can be cross-generational and crosses concepts of gender or culture, simply by a desire for transparency, a desire to see another’s point of view. Misfits who visibly fit in will sometimes find themselves merging with the mainstream, for a feeling of safety.

“Of late, channels, production companies, and online streaming services have found themselves scrabbling for misfits like kids in a playground scrabbling for sweets – desperate for a chew, not sure of the taste of these sweets, these dreams, just aware they might be very profitable.

“Is it important that voices used to interruption get the experience of writing something without interference at least once?”

Coel's UK publisher, Ebury, has said that Misfits makes a "compelling case for radical honesty" and will be a "rousing and bold case against fitting in".