Blog

Roseberys London is hosting an auction of the late Andrew Salkey's art collection.

Peepal Tree is pleased to share that Ocean Stirrings by Merle Collins has been named a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024. The finalists were announced at Charleston Festival in Sussex on Saturday 25 May, as part of an event on Orwell and his book 1984. 

The winner will be announced at the Orwell Prize ceremony on the evening of 27th June, at Conway Hall in Central London.

A safe, friendly, informative and practical workshop designed for those interested in writing autobiographies or biographies.

Shaping the Story: A Life Writing Workshop

Facilitated by Yvonne Weekes

Date: Saturday 1 June
Time: 11am–4pm
Location: Brighton (TBC)
Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions
Book online now

To mark the publication of Seepersad Naipaul, Amazing Scenes: Selected Journalism 1928-1953, here's an introduction to his published work, as well as some of the important work that discusses his legacy.

Kwame Dawes, distinguished writer and Peepal Tree's Associate Poetry Editor, has been announced as the next Poet Laureate of Jamaica. He follows Mervyn Morris, Lorna Goodison and Olive Senior. The post lasts for three years and the laureate is charged with both developing poets and a love for poetry in Jamaica.

This is a collection of writing that through its vigour and inventiveness is extremely readable. It makes the case that the very best journalism has every right to be considered as seriously as literary fiction; in a country which has prized the newspaper columnist who combines insight with high style, Seepersad Naipaul claims the status of a pioneer.

Today, we republished Edgar Mittelholzer's autobiography, A Swarthy Boy: A Childhood in British Guiana. Mittelholzer wrote over 20 books in his lifetime, but until 2010, all of them had been out of print since the 1980s. Since we launched our Caribbean Modern Classics series, however, we have managed to bring six of Mittelholzer's most beloved books back to life, including one book of mostly unpublished work under our main imprint.

Edgar Mittelholzer’s A Swarthy Boy: A Childhood in British Guiana (1963) is one of a small number of literary autobiographies by Caribbean writers, and, if strict genre criteria are applied, the first to be published. And even if the field of Caribbean autobiography is widened to extend beyond the literary, A Swarthy Boy still represents a pioneering venture. So, whilst he may well have found models in earlier British writing, as a Caribbean writer he began with almost a blank sheet.

“We always knew that the dismantling of the colonial paradigm would release strange demons from the deep, and that these monsters might come trailing all sorts of subterranean material” Stuart Hall

The Guyana Prizes were awarded at the NCC on Friday 1 March, at 7.00 pm local time. Prizes were awarded for Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Non-Fiction, in addition to the Youth Awards. 

This year's winner for the Guyana Prize for Literature (Poetry) was Ian McDonald for his collection, Not Quite Without a Moon. Ian's 12-year old grandson collected the award on his behalf.