Anthony Joseph
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Anthony Joseph is a poet, novelist, musician and lecturer. Joseph was born in Trinidad and has lived in the UK since 1989. He holds an MA in creative writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London where he is also completing a PhD with an interest in experimental Caribbean poetry, life writing and spoken arts.
Joseph grew up with his grandparents and began writing as a young child. He cites his main influences as the Calypso, surrealism, Jazz, the Spiritual Baptist church that his grandparents attended and the rhythms of Caribbean speech.
In September 2004 he was chosen by Renaissance One and the Arts Council England as one of fifty Black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to contemporary British literature, appearing in the historic ‘A Great Day’ photo and performing at the event at the British library. In April 2005, Joseph served as the British Council's first poet-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles.
Joseph is the author of two poetry collections, Desafinado in 1994 and Teragaton in 1997 and a spoken-word CD Liquid Textology (2005). His debut novel The African Origins of UFOs, was published by Salt Publishing in November 2006. Described as an ‘afro-psychedelic-noir, a poetic work of metafiction, mythology and afro-futurism’, the book was endorsed by Kamau Brathwaite, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Lauri Ramey who hailed it as ‘a future fiction classic’. Joseph subsequently received an Arts Council award to conduct a reading tour of the UK in support of the book. In 2007, the tour continued to Europe with a ten city tour of Germany and readings in the US. Joseph is also well known for his spoken word performances, often accompanied by his Jazz quartet The Spasm Band. His debut album with the band, Leggo de Lion was released in 2007 by Kindred Spirits and Joseph and the band toured internationally in support of the album. Joseph has also delivered academic papers at several conferences including The Black British Aesthetics Conference at Howard University, Washington, Rutgers University, New Jersey, Goldsmiths College and Oxford Brookes University. He currently lectures in creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Joseph is well known for his performances,often accompanied by The Spasm Band. His debut album with the band 'Leggo de Lion' was released April 2007 by Kindred Spirits, Amsterdam. The Spasm Band toured Europe and Morocco during much of 2007 in support of the album, appearing at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam, Les Eurockeennes, Belfort and the Blue Note Jazz Festival in Paris.
