Caryl Phillips
Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels (for which he has won multiple awards), Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional ...
that won the
PEN/Beyond Margins Award
PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...
in 2006. The novel reimagines the life of
Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being ...
(1874—1922), the first black entertainer in the U.S. to achieve the highest levels of fame and fortune, while darkening his skin with burnt cork and "playing the dim-witted 'coon' on Broadway and elsewhere", a story that allows the author to deal with issues of race and identity that he also addressed in his novel '' A Distant Shore'', as reviewer
Tabish Khair
Tabish Khair is an Indian English author and associate professor in the Department of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark. His books include ''Babu Fictions'' (2001), ''The Bus Stopped'' (2004), which was shortlisted for the Encore Award (UK ...
notes: "Dancing in the Dark explores the particular tensions of assuming a false identity which, in a racist society, would be considered the 'true' identity of the player. This catches the performer in the double bind of using the actor's art to confirm prejudices, which then blind their audiences to that art." The story also deals with "the perils of self-invention, that have long plagued American culture"."Dancing in the Dark" Caryl Phillips official website. Includes links to the music of Bert Williams.
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...