Oonya Kempadoo (born 1966) is a novelist who was born in the United Kingdom of
Guyanese parentage, her father being the writer
Peter Kempadoo
Peter "Lauchmonen" Kempadoo (1926 – 24 August 2019) was a writer and broadcaster from Guyana. He also worked as a development worker in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. He moved in 1953 to the UK, where he built a career in print journalism a ...
.
Biography
Born in
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, England, "of mixed Indian, African, Scottish, and Amerindian descent", Oonya Kempadoo was brought up in Guyana from the age of five.
[Author biography, "Was Me Mudda"]
— Artists in Conversation, BOMB
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...
86, Winter 2004. She has studied art in
Amsterdam, and has also lived in
Trinidad,
St. Lucia
Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerin ...
, and
Tobago.
[Simon Lee]
"The excitement of writing: Oonya Kempadoo"
'' Caribbean Beat'', Issue 54 (March/April 2002). She now lives in
St. George's, Grenada
St. George's (Grenadian Creole French: ''Sen Jòj'') is the capital of Grenada. The town is surrounded by a hillside of an old volcano crater and is located on a horseshoe-shaped harbour.
St. George's is a popular Caribbean tourist destinatio ...
.
[Oonya Kempadoo biography]
Macmillan Publishers.
Kempadoo began writing seriously in 1997
and her first novel, ''Buxton Spice'', a semi-autobiographical rural coming-of-age story,
was published 1998. ''
The New York Times'' described it as "superb, and superbly written". Her second book, ''Tide Running'' (Picador, 2001), set in
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
, Tobago, is the story of young brothers Cliff and Ossie. ''Tide Running'' won the
Casa de las Americas Literary Prize for best English or Creole novel.
Both of these books were nominated for
International Dublin Literary Awards, the first in 2000 and the second in 2003.
In 2011, she participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.
She was named a Great Talent for the Twenty-First Century by the
Orange Prize judges and is a winner of the
Casa de las Américas Prize.
Her third novel ''All Decent Animals'' (
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) was recommended on
Oprah's 2013 Summer Reading List by
Karen Russell, who said: "How am I only now finding out about this writer? It's as if she's inventing her own language, which is incantatory, dense, and lush. The authority and blood pulse of it seduced me."
[Karen Russell o]
"All Decent Animals"
O's 2013 Summer Reading List.
Bibliography
* ''Buxton Spice'' (W&N, 1998). new edition, Phoenix House, 1999;
* ''Tide Running''. Picador, 2001;
* ''All Decent Animals''. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013;
References
External links
Oonya Kempadoo's official website.* Allyson Latta
"'Living in That Moment': Interview with Grenada-based novelist Oonya Kempadoo" Memories into Story, 11 March 2013.
* Simon Lee
"The excitement of writing: Oonya Kempadoo" ''Caribbean Beat'', Issue 54 (March/April 2002).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kempadoo, Oonya
People from Sussex
1966 births
Living people
Guyanese women novelists
20th-century English novelists
English people of Guyanese descent
Black British women writers
21st-century English novelists
20th-century English women writers
21st-century English women writers
International Writing Program alumni
British expatriates in Grenada