Jason Allen-Paisant | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1980 (age 44–45) Jamaica |
| Alma mater | University of the West Indies (Mona); École normale supérieure (Paris); University of Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, writer and academic |
| Employer | University of Manchester |
| Notable work | Thinking with Trees (2021) Self-Portrait as Othello (2023) |
| Awards | OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (2022) T. S. Eliot Prize (2023) |
| Website | www |
Jason Allen-Paisant (born 1980) is a Jamaican poet, writer and academic, based in the UK. His second collection of poems, Self-Portrait as Othello, won the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Allen-Paisant grew up in a small village in Manchester Parish, [1] central Jamaica. His mother was a primary school teacher. [2] [3] He attended the University of the West Indies (Mona), followed by further study at the École normale supérieure (Paris), and the University of Oxford, where he earned a DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) in Medieval & Modern Languages. [4]
His dissertation was on theatre from the French- and English-speaking Caribbean and a monograph on Derek Walcott, Aimé Césaire and Bertolt Brecht, Théâtre dialectique postcolonial (Classiques Garnier), [5] was published in 2017. A second monograph, Engagements with Aimé Césaire: Thinking with Spirits, will be published in February 2024 with Oxford University Press. [6]
Allen-Paisant's first collection of poems, Thinking with Trees (2021), [7] won the poetry category of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. [8] His second collection, Self-Portrait as Othello (2023), [9] uses William Shakespeare's Othello to explore a black male immigrant's search for an identity and masculine role mode. [2] It was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 2023 and went on to win the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection [10] and the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize. [11] According to the Eliot Prize judging panel (which comprised Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul), Allen-Paisant's collection is "a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair." [12]
A work of creative non-fiction by Allen-Paisant, entitled The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican's Search for Freedom in Nature, was published in 2025 by Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin. [4] [13]
Allen-Paisant is currently Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Critical Theory and Creative Writing in the Department of English, American Studies, and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. [4]
He is an associate editor of the literary magazine Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters . [14]
Allen-Paisant lives in Leeds, west Yorkshire, with his partner and their two children. [15]
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