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.
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