Bonnie Greer’s driving, passionate, urgent search for our common humanity

The words are every bit as true of Bonnie, whose death was announced today.

Bonnie Greer was a writer of enormous talent, and even greater empathy. She constantly strived for understanding, most of all in the times when understanding was so difficult. 

This was, I am sure, the greatest gift of a very, very gifted woman.

She was one of a small handful of columnists who I ever felt intimidated by. Not because she was – as so many are – precious, flaky or difficult. Quite the opposite; she was an editor’s dream in that regard. Her copy always arrived on time, clean as a whistle, and she never – in the pejorative industry phrase – “dialled it in”. 

Every column she wrote for us was what you would expect from a playwright who studied her craft under the likes of David Mamet; her words were honed, her arguments immaculate.

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Bonnie Greer

No. She had the power to intimidate because she was so far away; intellectually, culturally, politically and socially. When you were talking to Bonnie Greer, as editor to writer, you really wanted to be on your A game. 

Bonnie wrote for us both about politics and culture – and although her cultural pieces were always enlightening, and especially enjoyable on her favourite topic of vintage cinema, it was her political take I was always hungry for. She reliably came at things from a fresh and unconsidered angle, which is gold in a columnist.

In one of her final political columns for us, she chastised the new leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch for her deficiency of empathy in regards to her treatment of a fellow Black woman, Dianne Abbott. 

“When I was a kid,” Bonnie wrote, “we played a game called ‘Live in the Other Person’s Shoes’. It was meant to be an empathy creator and what you did was spend some time looking at the world through another person’s eyes.”

In truth, I don’t think Bonnie Greer ever stopped playing “Live in the Other Person’s Shoes”. 

When her weekly column came to its natural conclusion, as all columns eventually do, though she continued to write for us irregularly after that, she sent me a most gracious note. 

“I have always felt free with you. To say what I wanted to say in the way that I wanted to say it. And what writer can ask for more?”

And what editor could ask for more? Thank you, Bonnie.

The death of Bonnie Greer was announced today, September 16, 2026. She was 77. She is survived by her husband David.