Kei Miller | |
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![]() Miller reads from his work nominated for the Jhalak Prize 2022 | |
Born | Kingston, Surrey County, Jamaica | 24 October 1978
Education | University of the West Indies; Manchester Metropolitan University; University of Glasgow |
Notable works | The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion (2014) Augustown (2016) |
Notable awards | OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature |
Kei Miller FRSL (born 24 October 1978) is a Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger. He is also a professor of creative writing. [1]
Kei Miller was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. He read English at the University of the West Indies, but dropped out short of graduation. [2] However, while studying there, he befriended Mervyn Morris, who encouraged his writing. [3] Afterwards, Miller began publishing widely throughout the Caribbean.
In 2004, he left for England to study for an MA in Creative Writing (The Novel) at Manchester Metropolitan University under the tutelage of poet and scholar Michael Schmidt. [4] Miller later completed a PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow.
In 2006, Miller's first book of poetry was released, Kingdom of Empty Bellies [5] (Heaventree Press). It was shortly followed by a collection of short stories, The Fear of Stones, [6] which partly explores issues of Jamaican homophobia. The collection was shortlisted in 2007 for a Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the category of Best First Book (Canada or Caribbean). [7] His second collection of poetry, There Is an Anger That Moves, [8] was published in 2007 by Carcanet Press. [9] He is also the editor of Carcanet's 2007 New Caribbean Poetry: An Anthology. [10] His first novel, The Same Earth, [11] was published in 2008, followed in 2010 by The Last Warner Woman. [12] That same year saw the publication of his poetry collection A Light Song of Light. In 2013 his Writing Down the Vision: Essays & Prophecies was published, [13] and in 2014 a collection of poems for which he was awarded the Forward Prize, The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. [14] [15] Hilary Mantel chose The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion as one of her favourite books of 2014. [16] This compilation includes a poem on unusual Jamaican place-names, such as Me-no-Sen-You-no-Come. [17] He published a collection of essays titled Things I Have Withheld in 2021, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.
In 2014, Miller was named as one of the 20 "Next Generation Poets", a list compiled every ten years by the Poetry Book Society. [18]
He was an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa, and has also been a visiting writer at York University in Canada, at the Department of Library Services in the British Virgin Islands and a Vera Rubin Fellow at Yaddo. [19] [20] He currently divides his time between Jamaica and the United Kingdom. Until 2014, he was Reader at the University of Glasgow. He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.
Miller's third novel, Augustown , won the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. [21]
Miller was awarded the 2018 Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence in Arts & Letters. [22]
In June 2018, Miller was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative. [23]
Miller was a judge for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. [24]
As editor
Mervyn Eustace Morris OM is a poet and professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. According to educator Ralph Thompson, "In addition to his poetry, which has ranked him among the top West Indian poets, he was one of the first academics to espouse the importance of nation language in helping to define in verse important aspects of Jamaican culture." Morris was Poet Laureate of Jamaica from 2014 to 2017.
Olive Marjorie Senior is a Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal in 2005 by the Institute of Jamaica for her contributions to literature. Senior was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2021.
Lorna Gaye Goodison CD is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a leading West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now Professor Emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, serving in the role until 2020.
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OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, inaugurated in 2011 by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, is an annual literary award for books by Caribbean writers published in the previous year. It is the only prize in the region that is open to works of different literary genres by writers of Caribbean birth or citizenship.
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