Caryl Phillips

Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a British writer with a Caribbean background, best known as a novelist. He is now professor at Yale University and a visiting professor at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Life

He was born on St. Kitts. At four months old, his family moved to England and was brought up in Leeds, Yorkshire. He read English at Queen's College, Oxford. He began writing mainly drama.

He 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". Beside being an accomplished writer, Caryl Phillips is also a noted professor. He has taught at numerous universities in countries including: Barbados, Ghana, India, Singapore, Sweden, and the United States of America.

Works

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)

The Atlantic Sound

With a novelist's penetrating, proactive insight and a historian's careful and acute eye for detail, the Caribbean-born, London-raised Phillips explores the breadth of slavery's legacy along one of the major routes of the slave trade, from Liverpool, England through Accra, Ghana to Charleston, South Carolina. Phillips weaves his own witty and distinctively British observations through the affecting, beautifully reconstructed stories of three figures from the past.

In the first of Phillips' three stories, he recreates African trader John Ocansey's lonely trip from the Gold Coast to an even more lonely stay in late 19th century Liverpool. Alongside Ocansey's experiences, ...

With a novelist's penetrating, proactive insight and a historian's careful and acute eye for detail, the Caribbean-born, London-raised Phillips explores the breadth of slavery's legacy along one of the major routes of the slave trade, from Liverpool, England through Accra, Ghana to Charleston, South Carolina. Phillips weaves his own witty and distinctively British observations through the affecting, beautifully reconstructed stories of three figures from the past.

In the first of Phillips' three stories, he recreates African trader John Ocansey's lonely trip from the Gold Coast to an even more lonely stay in late 19th century Liverpool. Alongside Ocansey's experiences, Phillips gives his own sharply humorous impression of Liverpool and provides an illuminating history of the city's involvement with the slave trade, and its guilt-ridden effort to bury its place in slavery's past. The structure of Phillip's work reveals the brilliant use of time and place.

In Ghana, Phillips pairs his interactions with American Pan-Africanists coming "home" to Africa with his account of an African minister in 18th-century Accra, who turned a blind eye to the slave trade flourishing around him. Cleverly moving back and forth in time, Phillips draws parallels across the African Diaspora. By juxtaposing the horrors of a forced exodus with the joy and hope of a voluntary one, Phillips shows how that which was lost over the course of the slave trade can never be regained.

Phillips' last chapter is the story of J. Waties Waring, a white judge in Charleston, who integrated the Democratic primary in 1947. This story of the integration of humanity taking root in the law is set against Phillips' search for remnants of the "pest houses" where slaves were "seasoned" upon first taking root in this country. Phillips writes: "Almost one-third of all Africans who entered the North American world in captivity passed through the gateway in Charleston, South Carolina."

The Atlantic Sound is a deft and deeply moving history of African American survival. Phillips' work is a significant contribution to the discourse on black history and culture.

Essay collections

*"The European Tribe"
*"The Atlantic Sound"
*"A New World Order"

External links

* [http://www.carylphillips.com Caryl Phillips' website]
* [http://www.L3.ulg.ac.be/phillips The Caryl Phillips Bibliography]
* [http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth80 British Council page]
* [http://www.yale.edu/english/profiles/phillips.html Yale University: Caryl Phillips]