Selected Articles
- 'A Familial Conversation', Moving Worlds, 7.1 (2007), pp. 3-8.
- Review of Murder in Amsterdam, by Ian Buruma, TLS, 15 December 2006, p. 31.
- 'The Fifteenth Hole,' Golf World, 1 September 2006, pp. 75-79.
- "Ghana" The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, ed. by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (London: Abacus, 2006), pp. 150-154.
- "Border Crossings" Displacement, Asylum, Migration: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2004, ed. by Kate E. Tunstall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 210-225.
- 'I Could Have Been a Playwright', in Staging New Britain: Aspects of Black and South Asian Theatre Practice, ed. by Geoffrey V. Davis and Anne Fuchs (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 37-46.
- "Finding oneself at home" The Guardian, January 21, 2006.
- "TLS Books of the Year" TLS, December 2, 2005, p. 10.
- "Northern Soul" The Guardian, October 22, 2005.
- "Growing pains" The Guardian, August 20, 2005.
- "The power of love" The Guardian, 30 July 2005.
- "To Ricky with love" The Guardian, July 23, 2005, pp. 28-29. Also the introduction to the new edition of E.R. Braithwaite, To Sir With Love (London: Vintage Classics, 2005), pp. v-x.
- "The Height of Obsession" The Guardian, May 21, 2005, Review, pp. 1-4. Also published in French as "L'obsession des hauteurs," Courrier international, no. 768, July 21, 2005.
- "Do you come here often?" (on Lucas Radebe), The Observer, May 8, 2005.
- "Lost generation" The Guardian, April 23, 2005.
- "Constance Webb: Wife of Writer CLR James," obituary, The Guardian, April 15, 2005.
- "Foreword," Book of Voices (in support of Sierra Leone PEN), ed. by Michael Butscher (Birmingham: Flame Books, 2005), pp. 1-2.
- "Our Modern World," followed by an extract from A Distant Shore, in Revisiting Slave Narratives/Les avatars contemporains des récits d'esclaves, texts collected by/textes réunis par Judith Misrahi-Barak (Montpellier: Les Carnets du Cerpac, no. 2, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier III, 2005), pp. 519-525.
- "The High Anxiety of Belonging" (also in A New World Order), in Bridges Across Chasms: Towards a Transcultural Future in Caribbean Literature, ed. by B´nédicte Ledent (Liège: L3, 2004), pp. 7-11.
- "'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free': Identiteit and etniciteit na de aanslagen van 9/11," in Rechtvaardige oorlogen of zinloze slachtpartijen: Opstelle over literatuur en oorlog, ed. by Kathleen Gyssels and Elisabeth Bekers (Leuven: Acco, 2004), pp. 169-178.
- "Necessary journeys," The Guardian, December 11, 2004. Also published in Necessary Journeys, ed. by Melanie Keen and Eileen Daly (London: Arts Council England and BFI Black World, 2005), pp. 7-15.
- "Kingdom of the Blind," The Guardian, July 17, 2004, pp. 2-4.
- Review of Women Writing the West Indies, 1804-1939: A Hot Place Belonging to Us, by Evelyn O'Callaghan, TLS, May 21, 2004, p. 29.
- "The silenced minority" The Guardian, May 15, 2004, pp. 6-7.
- Review of West Indian Intellectuals in Britain, by Bill Schwarz, TLS, May 14, 2004, p. 30.
- "Something About Her," review of Not Without Love, by Constance Webb, TLS, April 23, 2004, p. 10.
- "De val van het Vrijheidsbeeld: De Caraïbische schrijver Caryl Phillips hekelt de onverdraagzaamheid in de VS," M (Maandblad van NRC Handelsblad), December 6, 2003, pp. 48-54.
- "A Beacon in Dark Times" The Guardian, November 22, 2003.
- "American Tribalism" The American Effect: Global Perspectives on the United States 1990-2003 (The Whitney Museum of American Art), 2003, pp. 87-91.
- "Distant Voices" (Sierra Leone) The Guardian, July 19th, 2003 pp. 4-6.
- "Out of Africa" (Chinua Achebe) The Guardian, February 22nd, 2003 pp. 4-6.
- "Confessions of a True Believer" (Shusaku Endo) The Guardian, January 4th, 2003 pp. 4-5.
- 'Sangatte', in The Guardian Year 2002, ed. by David McKie (Atlantic Books, 2002), pp. 60-65.
- "Ignored, Resented, Jeered and Mocked" (Serena Williams) The Guardian, December 21st, 2002 pp. 12-13.
- "Wilson Harris," and "The Gift of Displacement" Theater of the Arts: Wilson Harris and the Caribbean, Cross/Cultures 60, edited by Hena Maes-Jelinek and Benedicte Ledent, 2002, pp. 43-50.
- "O: A Review" Illuminations, August 2002, pp. 33-34.
- "The Disappeared" (Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel by Hillel Halkin). The New Republic, 23 September 2002, pp. 39-42.
- "Foreword to The Mystic Masseur the Screenplay" in Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, Number 1, Vol. 2, 2002, pp. 38-41.
- "United We Stand?" The Guardian, June 22, 2002.
- 'Foreword' and 'Synopsis of the Screenplay', in Gérard Besson / Caryl Phillips, The Mystic Masseur: Essays and Excerpts from the Screenplay (Trinidad & Tobago, San Juan: Paria, Merchant Ivory Productions, 2001).
- "Strangers in a Strange Land" The Guardian, November 17, 2001.
- Introduction to Giovanni's Room, by James Baldwin, Penguin Books, 2001, pp. v-xi.
- "Leeds United, a Love Affair in Black and White" The Sunday Times, December 23, 2001, Part 5, p. 3.
- "Reluctant Hero" The Guardian, December 12, 2001, Friday, pp. 8-9.
- "Stealing Beauty" Condé Nast Traveller, November 2001, p. 124.
- "'Race', Sport and British Society" ("Race", Sport and British Society, Ben Carrington and Ian McDonald, eds), Times Literary Supplement, November 30, 2001.
- "Ground Zero" The Guardian, September 14, 2001, Friday.
- "C. L. R. James: The Most Noteworthy Caribbean Mind of the Twentieth Century" The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Number 33, Autumn 2001, pp. 118-120.
- "A New World Order" (extract), Wasafiri, Number 34, Autumn 2001, pp. 39-41.
- "The Enigma of Denial: V. S. Naipaul's Negotiation of His Homeland," Biblio, January-February 2001, pp. 6-10.
- 'Put Money in Thy Purse', in Lost Classics, ed. by Michael Ondaatje, Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding and Linda Spalding (Knopf Canada, 2000), pp. 200-206.
- 'L'angoisse de l'identité', Passerelles: La Méditerranée caraïbe, ed. by Louis-Philippe Dalembert, 21 (automne-hiver 2000), pp. 27-31.
- "So far, yet so near," (edited version of a discussion that took place at the British Library between Caryl Phillips, Penelope Lively, and Alastair Niven), The Daily Telegraph, December 9, 2000, p. A7.
- "Through the Fire" in How Novelists Work, Edited by Maura Dooley, Seren Press, 2000, pp. 78-85.
- "The High Anxiety of Belonging" (De hoge nood erbij te horen) VN (VRIJ NEDERLAND) 15 July 2000, pp. 64-65.
- Introduction to Native Son by Richard Wright, Vintage Books 2000, pp. ix-xviii.
- "The Go-Between" (The Fortunes of Wangrin by Amadou Hampate Ba) The New York Times Book Review, 25 June 2000, p. 16.
- "The Enigma of Denial" (Between Father and Son: Family Letters by V. S. Naipaul and Reading and Writing: A Personal Account by V. S. Naipaul) The New Republic, 29 May 2000, pp. 43-49.
- "Mixed and Matched" (White Teeth by Zadie Smith) The Observer Review, 9 January 2000. p. 11.
- "Promiscuities" (Faulkner, Mississippi, translated by Barbara Lewis and Thomas C. Spear and Poetics of Relation translated Betsy Wing, both by Edouard Glissant) The New Republic, 27 December 1999, pp. 33-38.
- Introduction to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Random House Modern Library Series, 1999, pp. xi-xviii.
- "The Guyana Enigma" (Selected Essays by Wilson Harris) Times Literary Supplement. 5 November 1999.
- "A Dream Deferred: Fifty Years of Caribbean Migration to Britain," Kunapipi: Journal of Post-Colonial Writing, Volume XXI Number 2, 1999, pp. 106-118.
- "Truth and Reconciliation: Three Essays from Soyinka on Negritude and Africa's Future" (The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness by Wole Soyinka) The New York Times Book Review, 17 January 1999.
- Extract from Cambridge in Empire Windrush: Fifty Years of Writing About Black Britain. Ed. Onyekachi Wambu. London: Victor Gollancz, 1998. pp. 326-331.
- "A Broken Pattern of Islands" (Hurricane Georges: St. Kitts) The Times, 3 October 1998, p. 22.
- "We Are Leeds United" (Leeds United FC) The Big Issue in the North, 2-8 November 1998, pp. 14-15.
- Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Arts, Summer 1999, pp. 182-185.
- 'In the Falling Snow' (also in The European Tribe), in Always Elsewhere: Travels of the Black Atlantic, ed. by Alasdair Pettinger (London/New York: Cassell, 1998), pp. 152-155.
- "Staying Power" The Times Magazine, 13 June 1998. pp. 34-38.
- "Following On: The Legacy of Lamming and Selvon" Wasafiri, Volume 29, Spring 1998, pp. 34-36.
- "Burdened by White Men's Perceptions" (Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes by Stephen Howe and Masks: Blackness, Race and the Imagination by Adam Lively) The Financial Times, 15/16 August 1998, p. 6.
- "Relations With the Slave Trade" (Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball) The Financial Times, 25/26 July 1998, p. 6.
- "Prophet in Another Land" (On Linton Kwesi Johnson) The Guardian (Weekend), 11 July 1998, pp. 28-9, 31, 33.
- "On The Nature of Blood and The Ghost of Anne Frank" Commonquest, Volume 3 Number 2, Summer 1998, pp. 4-7.
- "The Last of the African Kings" and "Poetics of Relation" (The Last of the African Kings by Maryse Conde and Poetics of Relation by Edouard Glissant) Bomb, Summer 1998, p. 21.
- "The Voice of the Turtle: An Anthology of Cuban Stories" (The Voice of the Turtle: An Anthology of Cuban Stories Edited by Peter Bush) Bomb, Spring 1998, p. 16.
- "Word Scratcher" (Solibo Magnificent by Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov ) The New York Times Book Review, 29 March 1998, p. 10.
- "Slaves in Spielberg's Manacles" The Times, 28 February 1998, p. 22.
- "Life and Times of John C." (Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life by J. M. Coetzee) The New Republic, 9 February 1998, pp. 37-41.
- --------------. (Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life by J. M. Coetzee) English in Africa, Volume 25 Number 1, May 1998, pp. 61-70.
- "A Tale of Greed, Servitude, and Silence" (The Slave Trade: the History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (1440-1870) by Hugh Thomas) The Financial Times (Weekend), 18/19 January 1998, p. v.
- "The Far Euphrates" (The Far Euphrates by Aryeh Lev Stollman) Bookforum, Winter 1997. pp. 25, 28.
- "The Contagion of Liberty" (Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster) The New Republic, 10 November 1997, pp. 44-48.
- "Crucial Caribbean" Condé Nast Traveler, October 1997.
- "George Lamming Talks to Caryl Phillips" Wasafiri, 26, Autumn 1997, London, pp. 10-17.
- "Double Life of a Director" (On Steven Spielberg) The Guardian, 16 September 1997, pp. 2-4.
- "Another Course Shift Toward Seriousness" (Steven Spielberg) The New York Times, 7 September 1997, pp. 39, 42.
- "More to the Caribbean Than Beaches" (Traveller's Literary Companion to the Caribbean by James Ferguson) The Financial Times, 19/20 July 1997.
- 'Caryl Phillips's Honorary Awards Acceptance Speech', Metropolitan: The Magazine of Leeds Metropolitan University, 13 (Summer 1997), p. 15.
- "Homeward Bound" The Guardian Weekend, 21 June 1997, pp. 17-24.
- "Unmarooned" (Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov) The New Republic, 28 April 1997, pp. 45-49.
- "Literature: The New Jazz for Black America?" (The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay) The Observer, 6 April 1997, p. 17.
- "Poles on the Moral Compass" (Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story by Charles Evers and Andrew Szanton, and Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life by William M. Banks) The Financial Times, 5/6 April 1997, p. VI.
- Foreword to Ignatius Sancho: An African Man of Letters published by The National Portrait Gallery, London, 1997. pp. 9-14.
- "So Let's Just Leave Out the Ones Everybody's Heard Of" (The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature, edited by Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Welsh) The Observer, 15 January 1997.
- "Stuart Hall" Bomb, Winter 1997, New York, pp. 38-42.
- "Driven by Post-Colonial Dislocation" (The Counting House by David Dabydeen, and Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah) The Financial Times, 30 November/1 December 1996, p. 17.
- "Blot (Blood)" Redaktion Du, Zurich, Switzerland. August 1996, p. 8.
- "Mariner, Renegade, and Castaway" (C. L. R. James: A Political Biography by Kent Worcester) The New Republic, 5 August 1996, pp. 32-39.
- "Islam's Women Run Up Against Code of Koran" The Financial Times, 1 August 1996.
- "Former Soviet Boxer Seeks to Hit Gold Jackpot" The Financial Times, 31 July 1996.
- "Atlanta Goes for Gold in Self Marketing" The Financial Times, 30 July 1996.
- "Swansong for Britain's Black King of the Track" The Financial Times, 26 July 1996.
- "Other Teams Have More Modest Dreams" The Financial Times, 25 July 1996.
- "First and Last Games for St. Kitts-Nevis" The Financial Times, 22 July 1996.
- "Cultural References" (The Art of Being Black by Claire Alexander) The Financial Times, 1/2 June 1996, p. xii.
- "Impulses from the Outside: Civilising English Literature", paper read at the British Council Seminar held in Brussels, 24/25 May 1996.
- "The Many Colours of History" (Black England by Gretchen Gerzina) The Financial Times, 18/19 November 1995.
- "Hard Times of the 'Outside' Writers" (An extract of the lecture "Extravagant Strangers: The 'Other' Voice in English Literature") The Daily Telegraph, 11 November 1995, p. A3.
- "Caryl Phillips Interviews Salman Rushdie" Brick, Fall 1995, pp. 1-7.
- "Taking Up the Black Man's Burden" (Fatheralong by John Wideman) The London Sunday Times, 27 August 1995.
- "Why Cricket Helps Fair Play in the Caribbean" (Liberation Cricket: West Indies Cricket Culture ed. by Hilary Beckles and Brian Stoddart) The Financial Times, 17/18 June 1995, p. X.
- "Black Through a Rose-Tinted Lens" (Colored People by Henry Louis Gates Jr., and The Black Diaspora by Ronald Segal) The Financial Times, 29 April 1995, p. XIV.
- "A Tribute to a Silent Prophet" (On Curtis Mayfield) The Guardian, 11 March 1995, p. 28.
- "John Edgar Wideman" Bomb, Fall 1994, New York, pp. 34-37.
- "The Beat of History" (None to Accompany Me by Nadine Gordimer) The New Republic, 24 October 1994, pp. 34-37.
- "History and the Human Heart" (None to Accompany Me by Nadine Gordimer) Literary Supplement to the Weekly Mail and Guardian. September 1994.
- "The Voyage In" (A Way in the World by V. S. Naipaul) The New Republic, 13 June 1994, pp. 40-45.
- "Water" AGNI, 39, Boston, 1994, pp. 28-30.
- Extract from Crossing the River, Swing Low: Black Men Writing, Edited by Rebecca Carroll. New York, 1994, 172-176.
- "Melanie Rae Thon" Bomb, Summer 1993, New York, pp. 62-65.
- "West" in Best of Young British Novelists (2), Granta, 1993, London, pp. 235-56.
- "1978" in 21 Picador Authors Celebrate 21 Years of International Writing, Picador, London, 1993, pp. 65-70.
- "Derek Walcott" Bomb, Summer 1992, New York, pp. 46-49.
- "Africa: A Dream Deferred" (Native Stranger by Eddy Harris) The Washington Post Book World, March 1, 1992, pp. 1-2.
- "West Indian Writing Abroad: Naipaul and the New Generation" Caribbean Review of Books, Number 3, February 1992, Jamaica, pp. 16, 19, 24-25, 27.
- Extract from Cambridge, Callaloo, Volume 14, Number 3 (1991), pp. 573-577.
- "'The Movies, Baby' — A Dream of Hollywood" (James Baldwin) The Guardian, London, 3 January 1991, pp. 17-18.
- "The Errant Enigma of Genoa" (The Conquest of Paradise by Kirkpatrick Sale) The Los Angeles Times Book Review, 7 October 1990, pp. 4, 8.
- "Survival With the British: A West Indian Woman's Search for Identity" (The Family by Buchi Emecheta) The Washington Post Book World, 22 February 1990, p. B4.
- 'Dinner at Jimmy's', in James Baldwin: The Legacy, ed. by Quincy Troupe (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), pp. 59-64.
- "Revolutionary Suicide? Notes on the Life and Death of Huey Newton," Over Here: Reviews in American Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, Winter 1989, Nottingham, England, pp. 120-122.
- "Living and Writing in the Caribbean: An Experiment" Kunapipi, Vol. XI, Number 2, 1989, Denmark, pp. 44-50. Also in Us/Them: Translation, Transcription and Identity in Post-Colonial Literary Cultures by Gordon Collier, Editions Rodopi (Amsterdam/Atlanta), 1992, pp. 219-223.
- "The Traveler Grows Wistful on His Last Turn" (A Turn in the South by V. S.Naipaul) Los Angeles Times Book Review, 5/6 March 1989, p 2.
- "Islands in the Dark" (A Small Place by Jamacia Kincaid) The Los Angeles Times Book Review, 17 July 1988, pp. 1, 12.
- "The Grapefruit Memory" (Sequins for a Ragged Hem by Amryl Johnson) The Guardian, 18 March 1988.
- "An Eclectic Foray" (Black Plays Ed. Yvonne Brewster) Race Today Review, 8.1 (January/February 1988), p. 21.
- 'Rasta Sociology' ('O Babylon!' by Derek Walcott and Galt McDermott) Race Today Review, 1988, p. 38.
- "'A Good Man and An Honest Writer': Caryl Phillips Pays Tribute to James Baldwin" Race Today Review, January 1988, London, p. 18.
- "Small Island Politics" (Proud Empires by Austin Clarke) Race Today Review, Volume 17 Number 6, October/November 1987, pp. 23-24.
- "No Man Ever Dies In His Own Country" (The Arkansas Testament by Derek Walcott) The Los Angeles Times Book Review, 6 September 1987, pp. 1, 9.
- "Othello's Real Tragedy" The Guardian, 7 February 1987, p. 19.
- "Drumming at the Soul" (The Price of the Ticket and Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin) Race Today Review, 1987, pp. 39-40.
- "Sullen Beauty" (Incidents at the Shrine by Ben Okri) Race Today Review, 1987, pp. 40-41.
- "Historical Reverberations" (An Echo in the Bone by Dennis Scott) Race Today Review, December 1986.
- "Anti-Hero" (Chaka by Thomas Mofolo) Race Today Review. pp. 41-42.
- "Illustrated History Tour" (The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James) Race Today Review. July 1986. p. 26.
- "Black and White Television" Artrage, vol. 12, Spring 1986, pp. 34-36.
- "Uneven Production" (Ritual by Edgar White) Race Today Review, January 1986.
- "The Writer's Responsibility: An Introduction to The Shelter" Artrage, vol. 5, Autumn 1983, pp. 32-33.
- "Coming Over" Ambit, vol. 91, 1982, pp. 79-81.
- "Masters of Their Fate" The Times, 16 September 1983.