January 2012
New collection of essays about the work of Caryl Phillips forthcomingWriting in the Key of Life, ed. Benedicte Ledent and Daria Tunca. Rodopi, 2012.
From Rodopi, January 2012
"Writing in the Key of Life is the first critical collection devoted to the British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, a major voice in contemporary anglophone literatures. Phillips’s impressive body of fiction, drama, and non-fiction has garnered wide praise for its formal inventiveness and its incisive social criticism as well as its unusually sensitive understanding of the human condition.
"The twenty-six contributions offered here, including two by Phillips himself, address the fundamental issues that have preoccupied the writer in his now three-decades-long career – the enduring legacy of history, the intricate workings of identity, and the pervasive role of race, class, and gender in societies worldwide. Most of Phillips’s writing is covered here, in essays that approach it from various thematic and interpretative angles. These include the interplay of fact and fiction, Phillips’s sometimes ambiguous literary affiliations, his long-standing interest in the black and Jewish diasporas, his repeated exploration of Britain and its ‘Others’, and his recurrent use of motifs such as masking and concealment.
"Writing in the Key of Life testifies to the vitality of Phillipsian scholarship and confirms the significance of an artist whose concerns, at once universal and topical, find particular resonance with the state of the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century."
Essay included in new anthologyThe essay "Rude Am I in My Speech" has been included in The Best American Essays of 2011 (Houghton Mifflin). The essay is also in Phillips's 2011 volume, Color Me English.
October 2011
Radio playA new radio play, Dinner in the Village, based on the friendship between CLR James and his wife Constance Webb, and Richard Wright and his wife Ellen Wright, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday October 4th. It should be available online at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes.
September 2011
Radio BroadcastCaryl Phillips appears on BBC Radio 4: Book of the Week--The 9/11 Letters
Available online at bbc.co.uk for one week, beginning on Monday, September 5th.
"Five internationally acclaimed writers consider the impact of the momentous events of September 11th 2001. Ten years on, these authors use imaginative letters to reflect on the consequences for Britain, America and the world.
"The first letter is from novelist and essayist Caryl Phillips, who was born in St Kitts, grew up in Leeds and is now Professor of English at Yale University. In his letter, Phillips imagines that his young nephew might have to answer a history exam question about how the crisis of September 11th, 2001 determined American foreign and domestic policy. He gives an eye-witness account of the day and those following, reflecting how the events changed him, and his identity as a Resident Alien, someone who can live and work in the United States, but is not an American citizen."
Producer: Julian May.
August 2011
Colour Me English now available in the U.S. and U.K.For details on where to purchase, visit the home page.
From Harvill Secker, Summer 2011
"What do we mean by ‘English’? How does that image square with reality? How does our island look from abroad, and what aspects of our experience do we share with, for example, America – a nation built by outsiders and the huddled masses?
"Taking as its starting point a moving recollection of growing up in Leeds during the 1970s, Colour Me English broadens into a reflective, entertaining and challenging collection of essays and other non-fiction writing which ranges from the literary to the cultural and autobiographical.
"Elsewhere, Caryl Phillips goes on to describe the experience of living and working in America, and travels in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Belgium and France and beyond. He considers the lives and work of figures, amongst many others, including Chinua Achebe, James Baldwin, Billie Holiday and Luther Vandross, and how their experiences are refracted through the prisms of writing, music and cinema.
"But Colour Me English always circles back to questions of identity and belonging, and of its reverse, exclusion."
July 2011
Interview"Discomfort zone: Author Caryl Phillips explores issues of multiculturalism." Elizabeth Floyd Mair interviews Caryl Phillips about his new book, Color Me English. Read the full interview in The Times Union.
Translation
Crossing the River has been translated into Portuguese (Rio de Janeiro: Record). You can order it online via skoob.com.br and travessa.com.br.
November 2010
Color Me English publication date announced
Phillips's latest book, Color Me English, will be published in the U.S. by The New Press in July 2011, and by Harvill Secker in the U.K. in August.
In the Falling Snow released on audio in the U.S.
In the Falling Snow has been released as an audiobook in the U.S. by Recorded Books in an unabridged edition narrated by Ben Onwukwe. You can order it online via amazon.com.
January 2010
Migrant Journeys: A Conversation with Caryl Phillips, with Elvira PulitanoThis is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Atlantic Studies © 2009 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Atlantic Studies is available online.
June 2009
Cambridge released on audio in UKAs of 9 May, Cambridge has been released as an audiobook in the UK by Clipper Audio in an unabridged edition narrated by Adjoa Andoh. You can order it online via the "Where to buy" page.
April 2009
New collection of interviewsConversations with Caryl Phillips, a new collection of nineteen interviews conducted over more than two decades on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Caribbean, will be published in May. The collection has been edited by Renee T. Schatteman, and is published by University Press of Mississippi.
Phillips to deliver Northcliffe Lectures in 2010Caryl Phillips will be delivering the Northcliffe Lectures at University College, London in spring 2010.
January 2009
In the Falling Snow publication date announced
Phillips's latest novel, In the Falling Snow, will be published in the UK by Harvill Secker in May 2009, and by Alfred A. Knopf in the USA in September.
October 2008
Teaching at OxfordDuring May 2009 Caryl Phillips will be teaching at Oxford University. He will be giving a series of readings and seminars at The Queen's College, Wolfson College, and at the University Department of English.
May 2008
With Professor Stephen Clingman, March 29th 2008, Venice, Italy.
March 2008
Radio playA new radio play, A Long Way From Home, based on the last few years of the life of Marvin Gaye, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday March 30th. It should be available online at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.
October 2007
Foreigners publication October 26Read the official press release.
Reissues forthcoming in 2008
August 2007
Rough Crossings debuts in Birmingham; publication to followYou can now download an electronic version of the programme (PDF) for Rough Crossings, the Simon Schama play adapted to stage by Caryl Phillips. The play will debut 14 September at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Oberon Books will be publishing Rough Crossings, also in September, in the UK.
July 2007
Headlong Theatre unites Simon Schama and Caryl Phillips for a landmark theatrical event
- Rough Crossings
- Written by Simon Schama
- Adapted for the stage by Caryl Phillips
- DIRECTOR, Rupert Goold
- ADAPTED BY Caryl Phillips
- DESIGNER, Laura Hopkins
- LIGHTING DESIGNER, Paul Pyant
1789. As the American War of Independence reaches its climax, the freed plantation slave Thomas Peters and John Clarkson of the British navy embark upon a journey which will redefine racial politics and change attitudes towards slavery forever...
Rough Crossings tells the heroic story of the resettlement of a group of former slaves in West Africa and of the bruising relationship between Peters and Clarkson, divided by the barriers of race, but united in their ambitions of equality. Moving from the meeting houses of London to the inhospitable terrain of Sierra Leone, Rough Crossings is a vibrantly theatrical exploration of racial identity, of home, of what it means to be free.
Performance Schedule
- w/c 10th September - Birmingham Rep (first preview Friday 14th, local press Tuesday 18th, last performance Sat 22nd)
- w/c 24th September - Lyric Hammersmith (first preview Tuesday 25th, national press Friday 28th, last performance Sat 13th)
- w/c 15th October - Liverpool Everyman (first show Tuesday 16th, last performance Sat 27th)
- w/c 5th November - West Yorkshire Playhouse (first show Tuesday 6th, final performance 24th November)
June 2007
Interview"Not afraid of ambiguity," an interview with Caryl Phillips by Axel Stähler, Bonn/Münster. Read the full interview [PDF].
December 2006
New book forthcomingCaryl's new book, Foreigners, will be published in the USA and Britain in Fall 2007.
From Knopf, Fall 2007
"From 'one of the literary giants of our times' (The New York Times)—a brilliant hybrid of reportage, fiction, and historical fact that tells the stories of three black men whose tragic lives speak resoundingly to the place and role of the foreigner in English society.
"Francis Barber, 'given' to the great l8th century writer Samuel Johnson, afforded an unusual depth of freedom, which, after Johnson's death, would help hasten his wretched demise....Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer, who made history in 1951 by defeating Sugar Ray Robinson, and who ended his life in debt and despair...David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life called into question the reality of English justice, and whose death at the hands of police in 1969 served as a wake up call for the entire nation.
"Each of these men's stories is told in a different, perfectly realized voice. Each illuminates the complexity and drama that lie behind the simple notions of haplessness that have been used to explain the tragedy of their lives. And each explores, in entirely new ways, the themes—at once timeless and urgent—that have been at the heart of all of Caryl Phillips' work: belonging, identity, and race.
"Foreigners is among his most powerful, empathic, and profoundly affecting books."
November 2006
PodcastHear a podcast of Caryl's appearance with Glyn Maxwell at Lensic Theatre in Santa Fe, NM (11 November 2006) — Listen Now
May 16, 2006
Three titles to be reissuedThree novels—Dancing in the Dark, Crossing the River, and Higher Ground—will be reissued in paperback this September by Vintage UK.
September, 2005
Dancing in the Dark
A searing new novel that reimagines the remarkable, tragic, little-known life of Bert Williams (1874—1922), the first black entertainer in the United States to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune. Dancing in the Dark was published in September 2005 by Secker and Warburg in the UK and by Alfred A. Knopf in the USA. Paperback editions will be published by Vintage in September 2006 in the United States and October 2006 in the UK.
August 4, 2005
Article published- The Colour of Funny, an article about the novel Dancing in the Dark was published by The Independent (UK).
upcoming readings
Click here for a full listing of scheduled readings and appearances.