Booker Prize shortlist entrant in conversation at Leeds Beckett University

Hosted by Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Humanities, and supported by the Centre for Culture and the Arts, the award-winning Caribbean writers visited our University as part of a series of events celebrating Black History Month.

Dr Zobel Marshall said: “The audience enjoyed a rich and wide-ranging discussion which spanned the impacts of colonialism in the Caribbean to northern identity and the changing social and cultural landscapes of Leeds'. Phillips and Antoni are both revered writers in their chosen field and it was an honour to welcome them to the University – the evening was a great success.”

Born in St Kitts but raised in Leeds, Phillips is the editor of two anthologies and the author of three works of non-fiction and eight novels. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. ‘The Lost Child’ is a sweeping story of orphans and outcasts – a multifaceted, deeply original response to Emily Bronte's masterpiece, Wuthering Heights.

Born in the US of Trinidadian parents, Robert Antoni grew up in the Bahamas.  He is the author of five books and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Commonwealth Writers Prize, and an NEA grant. Antoni recently received the NALIS Lifetime Literary Award from the Trinidad and Tobago National Library and the prestigious OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. ‘As Flies to Whatless Boys’ is a richly comic historical novel.

The event was partnered by literary curators Renaissance One, Leeds-based publishers Peepal Tree Press, The Big Bookend Festival and Leeds University.

Black History Month continues throughout October with the annual race lecture: ‘Race Equality in Education: Measuring Up?’ on Wednesday 21 October at 5.30pm-8pm and ‘Black N Proud: Exploring B.A.M.E LGBTIQ+’ on Friday 30 October at 5pm-9pm. Further details for both events can be found at http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/news/1015-black-history-month/