Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in Leeds, England. He is often describes as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional output is defined by interest in and searching exploration of the experiences of people of the African diaspora in England, the Caribbean and the United States. AS well as writing, Phillips has worked as an academic at numerous educational institutions including Amherst College, Barnard College and most recently Yale University where he has held the position of Professor of English since 2005.
He is the author of numerous books of non-fiction and fiction: Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award and A Distant Shore won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize. His other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and Britain’s oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crossing the River, which was also short-listed for the Booker Prize.
He has written extensively for the stage, television and film and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and he holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities. In 2013 he was the recipient of the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
Caryl Phillips will be giving the Derek Walcott Lecture at the National Cultural Centre, Barnard Hill, Castries, St. Lucia on 21st January 2014 at 7:30pm – entrance is free.
https://www.facebook.com/carylphillips
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Phillips
- Photo by Georgia Popplewell
