In today's Britain thousands of people have parents from different cultural backgrounds. In February 2008 we asked for people from any background to send us true stories which illuminate the complexities, challenges and joys of having a mixed heritage - those defining moments which seem to say it all. Then we asked six judges - including the novelist Kate Mosse and Shami Chakrabati from Liberty - to choose the best, most searching accounts to be included in this anthology. The resulting stories are as varied and colourful as they are true, honest and moving, but through all of them runs a universal theme: the desire to know and understand our own identity, and to forge a sense of self that surpasses the complex layers of places, parents and the past.