Caryl Phillips

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Caryl Phillips
Born (1958-03-13) 13 March 1958
St. Kitts
Occupation Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
Nationality Kittitian-British
Notable work(s) The Final Passage (1985), Crossing the River (1993), Dancing in the Dark (2005)
Notable award(s) Commonwealth Writers Prize (2003, 2006) James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1994)

Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels (for which he has won multiple awards), Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional output is defined by its interest in, and searching exploration of, the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora in England, the Caribbean and the United States.[1][2][3] As well as writing, Phillips has worked as an academic at numerous institutions including Amherst College, Barnard College and, most recently, Yale University where he has held the position of Professor of English since 2005.[4][5]

Life

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts to Malcolm and Lillian Phillips on 13 March 1958.[1][6] When he was four months old, his family moved to England and settled in Leeds, Yorkshire.[1][7] In 1976, Phillips won a place at Queen's College, Oxford University, where he read English, graduating in 1979.[1][8] Whilst at Oxford, Phillips directed numerous plays and spent his summers working as a stagehand at Edinburgh festival.[1] On graduating, Phillips moved to Edinburgh where he lived for a year, on the dole, whilst writing his first play, Strange Fruit (1980), which was taken up and produced by the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.[1][9][10] Phillips subsequently moved to London where he wrote two more plays - Where There is Darkness (1982)and Shelter (1983) - that were staged at the Lyric Hammersmith.[1]

At the age of 22, Phillips visited St. Kitts for the first time since his family had left the island in 1958.[11] The journey provided the inspiration for his first novel, The Final Passage, which was published five years later.[1][12] After publishing his second book, The State of Independence (1986), Phillips went on a one-month journey around Europe, which resulted in his collection of essays The European Tribe.[13] During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Phillips divided his time between England and St. Kitts whilst working on his novels Higher Ground (1989) and Cambridge (1991).[14]

In 1990, Phillips took up a Visiting Writer position at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He remained at Amherst College for a further eight years, becoming the youngest English tenured Professor in the US when he was promoted to that position in 1995.[1] During this time, he wrote what is perhaps his most well-known novel, Crossing the River (1993), which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. [15] After taking up the position at Amherst, Phillips found himself doing "a sort of triangular thing" for a number of years, residing between England, St Kitts, and the U.S. [16]

Finding this way of living both "incredibly exhausting" and "prohibitively expensive", Phillips ultimately decided to give up his residence in St. Kitts, though he says that he still makes regular visits to the island.[16] In 1998, Phillips joined Barnard College, Columbia University, as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order.[8] In 2005 he moved to Yale University, where he currently works as Professor of English.[5] Phillips was made an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2000, and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2011.[17]

Works and critical reception

Phillips has tackled themes on the African slave trade from many angles. His work has been recognised by numerous awards including Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1993 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crossing the River and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book award for A Distant Shore.

Phillips received the PEN Open Book Award (formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award) for Dancing in the Dark in 2006.

Bibliography

Novels

  • The Final Passage (1985)
  • A State of Independence (1986)
  • Higher Ground (1989)
  • Cambridge (1991)
  • Crossing the River (1993)
  • The Nature of Blood (1997)
  • A Distant Shore (2003)
  • Dancing in the Dark (2005)
  • Foreigners (2007)
  • In the Falling Snow (2009)

Essay collections

  • The European Tribe (1987)
  • The Atlantic Sound (2000)
  • A New World Order (2001)
  • Colour Me English (2011)

Radio plays

  • A Kind of Home – James Baldwin in Paris (9 January 2004)
  • Hotel Cristobel (13 March 2005)
  • A Long Way from Home (30 March 2008)

Awards

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Jaggi 2001.
  2. ↑ Low 1998.
  3. ↑ Bewes 2006.
  4. ↑ Methi 2009.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Phillips 2005-2010.
  6. ↑ Phillips 2009.
  7. ↑ Metcalfe 2010.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 British Council.
  9. ↑ Phillips 2010.
  10. ↑ Bell 1991, pp. 585-6.
  11. ↑ Eckstein 2001.
  12. ↑ Swift 1992.
  13. ↑ Bell 1991, pp. 558-9.
  14. ↑ Phillips 1995, p. 156.
  15. ↑ Booker Prize Foundation.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Phillips 1995.
  17. ↑ Phillips 2005-2010b.
  18. ↑ Russell Leadbetter (21 October 2012). "Book prize names six of the best in search for winner". Herald Scotland. Retrieved 21 October 2012. 
  19. ↑ "Authors in running for 'best of best' James Tait Black award". BBC News. 21 October 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2012. 

Sources

  • Bell, C. Rosalind (Summer 1991). "Worlds Within: An Interview with Caryl Phillips". Callaloo 14 (3): 578–606. 
  • Bewes, Timothy (Spring 2006). "Shame, Ventriloquy and the Problem of Cliche in Caryl Phillips". Cultural Critique 63: 33–60. 
  • Booker Prize Foundation. "Caryl Phillips". Booker Prize Foundation. Retrieved 13 June 2012. 
  • British Council. "Caryl Phillips". British Council. Retrieved 12 June 2012. 
  • Eckstein, Lars (April 2001). "The Insistence of Voices: An Interview with Caryl Phillips". Ariel 32 (2): 33–43. 
  • Jaggi, Maya (3 November 2001). "Caryl Phillips: The Guardian Profile". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 June 2012. 
  • Low, Gail (Winter 1998). ""A Chorus of Common Memory": Slavery and Redemption in Caryl Phillips Cambridge and Crossing the River". Research in African Literatures 29 (1): 121–141. 
  • Metcalfe, Anna (21 June 2010). "Small Talk: Caryl Phillips". The Financial Times. Retrieved 12 June 2012. 
  • Phillips, Caryl; Jenny Sharpe (1995). "Of this Time, of that Place". Transition 68: 154–161. 
  • Phillips, Caryl (22 May 2009). "I prefer not to raise my head above the parapet (an interview with Anita Methi)". The Independent. Retrieved 12 June 2012. 
  • Phillips, Caryl (17 October 2010). "Once upon a life". The Observer (Observer Magazine). p. 14. Retrieved 12 June 2012. 
  • Phillips, Caryl (2005-2010). "Biography: Education and Teaching". Caryl Phillips: The Official Website. Retrieved 10 September 2012. 
  • Phillips, Caryl (2005-2010b). "Biography:Awards". Caryl Phillips. Retrieved 10 September 2012. 
  • Swift, Graham (Winter 1992). "Caryl Phillips (An Interview)". BOMB 38. 

External links

Commonwealth Writers' Prize: Best Book Winners
1987–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
Authority control
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