ABOUT THE AUTHOR Simon Frederick is a filmmaker, photographer and entrepreneur. Born in London to Grenadian parents, he has built a career examining the gap between appearance and reality through portraiture, film and now the written word. A professional observer for more than three decades, his work has taken him across cultures, borders and institutions, driven by a persistent question: why do people say one thing and do another? The Cultural Contradictions is his exploration of that question. He has spent his career studying identity, behaviour and the stories people construct about themselves and the world around them, convinced that human beings are rarely as simple as they appear. The Cultural Contradictions is his first book and the first in a planned series examining the tensions, paradoxes and conflicts that shape contemporary society.