About Jason Allen-Paisant

Scholar, Poet, and Thinker Shaping Afro-Diasporic Futures through Words and Wisdom

I am a scholar, award-winning poet, and writer. My writing explores the intersections of history, heritage, and aesthetics in the African diaspora, and how our bodies, memories, and environments interweave to form pathways for liberation, escape and renewal.

My first book of poemsThinking with Trees won the poetry category of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; it was also shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. My second, Self-Portrait as Othello, is a Poetry Book Society Choice and the winner of the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection as well as the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize. I will collaborate regularly with artists working in different media. Recent collaborations have included the Manchester Art Gallery, the Cincinnati Art Museum and LUX Moving Image (London).

I am a Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing in the Department of English, American Studies, and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester, and an alumnus of the University of the West Indies (Mona), the École normale supérieure (Ulm), and the University of Oxford. I am the author of Théâtre dialectique postcolonial (Classiques Garnier) and of Engagements with Aimé Césaire: Thinking with Spirits (Oxford University Press). My memoir, The Possibility of Tenderness, will be published by Hutchinson Heinemann in March 2025.

Featured Books

Updates from my desk

A Jamaican Poet in Dublin

On St Patrick’s Day, Sunday 17th March 2024, I presented ‘A Jamaican Poet in Dublin’ on BBC Radio 4. This programme was produced by Claire Cunningham, with poet

Conversation with Professor David Scott

Really looking forward to this conversation with Professor David Scott, renowned anthropologist and founder & editor of Small Axe, on 9th April at the Institute for Ideas and

Aimé Césaire: Thinking through Resonance

Thanks to leading global literary magazine Words Without Borders for commissioning this essay meant to coincide with my latest book Engagements with Aimé Césaire, published just last month. In

Association of Scotland John Masefield Lecture

From the website of the Byre Theatre: ‘As the war in Gaza continues, as the scale of the violence and suffering surpasses our understanding, Allen-Paisant considers how poetry,

The Othellos of this World:

I’m genuinely so, so happy that this interview exists. As any writer will say, having this depth of attention paid to your work is a gift, and I

Kicking the Can Down the Road

‘Kicking the Can Down the Road’, my craft essay for The Poetry School. I talk about interruption, the centrality of the body in my work, about learning to