Amryl Johnson

Amryl Johnson
Born(1944-04-06)6 April 1944
Tunapuna, Trinidad
Died1 February 2001(2001-02-01) (aged 56)
OccupationPoet
NationalityTrinidadian British
Alma materUniversity of Kent

Amryl Johnson (6 April 1944 – 1 February 2001) was a writer born in Trinidad who lived most of her life in Britain.[1]

Life

Johnson was born in Tunapuna, Trinidad, and was brought up by her grandparents until the age of 11, when she moved to Britain to join her parents.[2][3] She attended secondary school in London and went on to study British, African and Caribbean literature at the University of Kent.[4] Much of her work concerned the diasporic nature of her life and the hostility she faced in Britain.[1]

For a time, Johnson taught at the University of Warwick but generally supported herself by writing and performing. During the late 1980s, she settled in Coventry.[1]

Sequins for a Ragged Hem (1988) narrates Johnson's second return tour to Trinidad as a spiritual "homecoming" made problematic, among other reasons, by the fact that the house where she was born had been demolished.[5]

Johnson's work was included in several anthologies, including News for Babylon: The Chatto Book of Westindian-British Poetry (1984), Let It Be Told: Essays by Black Women in Britain (1987), Watchers & Seekers: Creative Writing by Black Women in Britain (1987), The New British Poetry (1988), Delighting the Heart (1989), Creation Fire: A CAFRA Anthology of Caribbean Women's Poetry (1990), Taking Reality by Surprise (1991), Daughters of Africa (1992) and OTHER: British and Irish Poetry since 1970 (1999).

Selected works

  • Shackles, poetry (1983)
  • Long Road to Nowhere, poetry (Virago, 1985)[6]
  • Sequins for a Ragged Hem, travel writing (Virago, 1988)[6]
  • Blood and Wine, audio recording (Cofa Press, 1991)[6]
  • Gorgons, poetry (Cofa Press, 1992)[6]
  • Tread Softly in Paradise (Cofa Press)[6]
  • Calling, poetry (2000)[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c Brown, Stuart (29 March 2001). "Obituary: Amryl Johnson". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  2. ^ Stringer, Jenny, ed. (1996). The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727573. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  3. ^ Busby, Margaret (1992), "Amryl Johnson", Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 587.
  4. ^ Dabydeen, David; Gilmore, John; Jones, Cecily, eds. (2007). The Oxford Companion to Black British History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727337. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  5. ^ Tobias Döring (2002). Caribbean-English Passages: Intertexuality in a Postcolonial Tradition. Psychology Press. pp. 45–6. ISBN 978-0-415-25584-4.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Obituary: Amryl Johnson". Coventry & Warwickshire Network (CWN). 13 February 2001.