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John Cookson

John Cookson is a journalist and writer whose career has taken him to newsrooms and war zones .across the globe. He has reported for Sky News, Al Jazeera, Fox News and Bloomberg, covering conflicts, revolutions, and stories of resilience.

The Jazz Man is his latest book: a work of fiction but rooted in the extraordinary, little-known life of Augustus Agboola Browne. Born in Lagos in 1895, Browne stowed away to Europe and made his name as a jazz musician in interwar Poland. He was the only known black member of the Polish resistance to fight in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Browne emigrated to Great Britain in 1958, and lived and worked as a percussionist  in London until his death in 1976.

About the book, John says: “Much of Browne’s life remains undocumented. Historical fragments survive—files in the UK's National Archives and Poland's Uprising Museum, a few surviving photographs and conversations with surviving relatives. From these scattered traces and visits to Nigeria and Poland I have built a narrative, blending fact with imagination. Dialogue, private thoughts, and some characters are fictionalised to fill in what history left silent.

“I have tried to stay faithful to the spirit of Browne's journey: his love of music, his defiance in the face of racism, and his courage during Europe's darkest years. Where the record is incomplete, I have used fiction to suggest what might have been, always mindful of the broader truths of the time.

“This book is, above all, an attempt to give voice to a man who lived at the crossroads of race, war, and art—and whose story, though long overlooked, deserves to be remembered.”