Caryl Phillips is one of the most respected writers of his generation. An award-winning author best known for his fiction, essays and stage plays, he has also written radio plays, nine of which were broadcast by the BBC between 1984 and 2016. Previously locked away in Phillips's archives, housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, these hidden gems are now published in Caryl Phillips's Radio Plays, the first collection of these important works of drama. Despite being previously overlooked, these radio plays are fully creative works and constitute an integral part of Caryl Phillips's literary universe. Not only do these dramatic texts display the author's hallmark mix of formal elegance and sharp social criticism, but they also offer compelling points of comparison with the rest of his wider writing. From the experience on an eighteenth-century slave ship and the life of a migrant family in 1980s England, to an account of James Baldwin's time in Paris and Marvin Gaye's stay in Belgium, these plays grapple with expansive themes in creative and dramatic ways. Contextualized by a scholarly introduction by Benedicte Ledent, this volume introduces these works in the published form for the first time, allowing readers a better grasp of Phillips's narrative techniques, offering fascinating vistas into his imaginary world, which ranges from the history of the African diaspora to the predicament of displaced individuals the world over.

An "arresting . . . bracing and affecting volume" (Booklist) that "brims with curiosity and cosmopolitanism" (Publishers Weekly), Color Me English was hailed in the Guardian as one of the best books of 2011 by Blake Morrison. This compilation of essays from award-winning author Caryl Phillps is "a polymorphous delight that always retains at its core the notion of identity: how it is constructed, how it is thrust upon us, how we can change it" (The Independent). A bold reflection on race and culture across national boundaries, Color Me English includes touching stories from Phillips's childhood in England; his years living and teaching in the United States during the turbulent times of 9/11; and his travels across Europe and Africa, where he engages with legendary writers James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Chinua Achebe, and Ha Jin. Featured on radio programs including The Leonard Lopate Show and The Diane Rehm Show and covered in Salon, the Huffington Post, and Essence, Color Me English is a stunning collection from Phillips, who "writes wonderfully crafted, deeply meditative treatises . . . [that are] always interesting and informative" (Quarterly Black Review).

Considered an 'audacious' second novel, Giovanni's Room is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.

Caryl Phillips is one of the most respected writers of his generation. An award-winning author best known for his fiction, essays and stage plays, he is also the author of radio plays, nine of which were broadcast by the BBC between 1984 and 2016. Previously locked away in Phillips's archives, housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, these hidden gems are now published in Caryl Phillips's Radio Plays, the first collection of these important works of drama. Despite being previously overlooked, these radio plays are fully creative works and constitute an integral part of Caryl Phillips's literary universe. Not only do these dramatic texts display the author's hallmark mix of formal elegance and sharp social criticism, but they also offer compelling points of comparison with the rest of his wider writing. From the experience on an eighteenth-century slave ship and the life of a migrant family in 1980s England, to an account of James Baldwin's time in Paris and Marvin Gaye's stay in Belgium, these plays grapple with expansive themes in creative and dramatic ways. Contextualized by a scholarly introduction by Benedicte Ledent, this volume introduces these works in the published form for the first time, allowing readers a better grasp of Phillips's narrative techniques, offering fascinating vistas into his imaginary world, which ranges from the history of the African diaspora to the predicament of displaced individuals the world over.

**A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK** 'A milestone in the campaign for racial equality' Guardian In 1945, Rick Braithwaite, a smart, highly educated ex-RAF pilot, looks for a job in British engineering. He is deeply shocked to realise that, as a black man from British Guiana, no one will employ him because of the colour of his skin. In desperation he turns to teaching, taking a job in a tough East End school, and left to govern a class of unruly teenagers. With no experience or guidance, Braithwaite attempts to instil discipline, confound prejudice and ultimately, to teach. 'Moving and inspiring' New York Times WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CARYL PHILLIPS

If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, which side would you want to win? When the last British governor of Virginia declared that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the king would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves fled from farms, plantations, and cities to try to reach the British camp. A military strategy originally designed to break the plantations of the American South had unleashed one of the great exoduses in U.S. history. With powerfully vivid storytelling, Schama details the odyssey of the escaped blacks through the fires of war and the terror of potential recapture, shedding light on an extraordinary, little-known chapter in the dark saga of American slavery. Adapted for the stage by the award-winning playwright and novelist Caryl Phillips.

From an acclaimed, award-winning novelist comes this brilliant hybrid of reportage, fiction, and historical fact: the stories of three black men whose tragic lives speak resoundingly to the problem of race in British society.
With his characteristic grace and forceful prose, Phillips describes the lives of three very different men: Francis Barber, "given" to the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson, whose friendship with Johnson led to his wretched demise; Randolph Turpin, a boxing champion who ended his life in debt and decrepitude; and David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949 and whose death at the hands of police twenty years later was a wake up call for the entire nation. As Phillips weaves together these three stories, he illuminates the complexities of race relations and social constraints with devastating results.

In this searing novel, Caryl Phillips reimagines the life of the first black entertainer in the U.S. to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune.After years of struggling for success on the stage, Bert Williams (1874--1922), the child of recent immigrants from the Bahamas, made the radical decision to don blackface makeup and play the "coon." Behind this mask he became a Broadway headliner-as influential a comedian as Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and W. C. Fields, who called him "the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew." It is this dichotomy at Williams' core that Phillips explores in this richly nuanced, brilliantly written novel, unblinking in its attention to the sinister compromises that make up an identity.

From Caryl Phillips--acclaimed author of "The Nature of Blood and "The Atlantic Sound--a masterful new novel set in contemporary England, about an African man and an English woman whose hidden lives, and worlds, are revealed in their fragile, fateful connection.
Dorothy and Solomon live in a new housing estate on the outskirts of an English village. She's recently bought her bungalow; he's recently become the night watchman. He is black, an immigrant. She is white, a recently retired music teacher. They are both solitary, reticent outsiders. When they move tenuously toward each other and their paths briefly cross, neither of them can know that it will be the last true human contact either will have.
The novel unfolds into the past to show us how Solomon and Dorothy have arrived at this moment: Solomon, a former soldier, escaping the horrors of a war-ravaged African country, entering England illegally, a non-man with no resources but his own waning strength, and no comprehension of the society that both hates and harbors him; Dorothy, the product of a troubled childhood and a messy divorce, fleeing the repercussions of a desperate obsession. In scene after resonant scene, we watch as Solomon and Dorothy come to live inside themselves, closing off from a world that has changed--and changed them--beyond recognition.
In their powerfully compelling stories, Caryl Phillips has created a brilliant and moving portrait of modern human displacement: from home, from heart, and from self.

"From the Hardcover edition.

'A brilliant hybrid of reportage, fiction, and historical fact that tells the stories of three black men whose tragic lives speak resoundingly to the place and role of the foreigner in English society' Observer Francis Barber, 'given' to the great eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson, afforded an unusual depth of freedom, which, after Johnson's death, would help hasten his wretched demise.... Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer, who made history in 1951 by defeating Sugar Ray Robinson, and who ended his life in debt and despair... David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life and death would question the reality of English justice, and serve as a wake-up call for the entire nation. Each of these men's stories is told in a different, perfectly realized voice. Each illuminates the complexity and drama that lie behind the tragedy of their lives. And each explores the themes at the heart of Caryl Phillips' work - belonging, identity, and race.

In this fascinating inquiry into the African Diaspora, Caryl Phillips embarks on a soul-wrenching journey to the three major ports of the transatlantic slave trade.

Juxtaposing stories of the past with his own present-day experiences, Phillips combines his remarkable skills as a travel essayist with an astute understanding of history. From an West African businessman's interactions with white Methodists in nineteenth-century Liverpool to an eighteenth-century African minister's complicity in the selling of slaves to a fearless white judge's crusade for racial justice in 1940s Charleston, South Carolina, Phillips reveals the global the impact of being uprooted from one's home through resonant, powerful narratives.

Extravagant Strangers is renowned author Caryl Phillips's very personal response to the popular idea that "outsiders" in Britain are currently reinvigorating the literary canon. Phillips shows that in fact English literature has never been homogenous: it has been shaped and influenced by outsiders for at least two hundred years.

Included in Extravagant Strangers are slave writers, such as Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho; Britons born in the colonies, such as Thackeray, Kipling, and Orwell; "subject writers", such as C.L.R. James and V. S. Naipaul; and "postcolonial" observers of Britain, such as Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, Timothy Mo, and Anita Desai. With this eloquent and often inspiring collection, Caryl Phillips proves, if proof be needed, that the greatest literature is often born out of irreconcilable tensions between a writer and his or her society.

As nineteen-year-old Leila surveys her island home from the ship that will carry her, her husband, and baby to England, she contemplates the Caribbean life of the 1950s that is chaotic, hand-to-mouth, and offers no way but out.

In a vastly ambitious and intensely moving novel, the author of Cambridge creates a many-tongued chorus of the African diaspora in the complex and riveting story of a desperate father who sells his three children into slavery.

Discover this heartrending story of orphans, outcasts and the grip of the past from award-winning novelist Caryl Phillips - inspired by Wuthering Heights. It is the 1960s. Isolated from her parents after falling in love with a foreigner, Monica Johnson raises her sons in the shadow of the wild Yorkshire moors. But when her younger son Tommy, a loner who is bullied at school, disappears, the family bond is demolished - with devastating consequences. Deftly intertwined with this modern narrative is the story of the ragged childhood of Emily Bronte's Heathcliff, one of literature's most enigmatic lost boys. Recovering the mysteries of the past to illuminate the predicaments of the present, The Lost Child is an exquisite novel about exile, freedom and what it is to belong. 'Heartbreaking...compelling' Independent

Award-winning writer Caryl Phillips presents a beautiful, heart-breaking novel of the life of Jean Rhys, author of Wide Sargasso Sea. '[A] remarkable novel... The story of a troubled young woman trying to make her way in England during the early years of the twentieth century' WILLIAM BOYD In the heart of London's Bloomsbury, Gwendolen - not yet truly famous as the writer 'Jean Rhys' - is presented with the opportunity she has been waiting for. Her husband has received an unexpected inheritance; she can, at last, return to the island of her childhood. For Gwendolen, Dominica is a place of freedom and beauty, far away from the lonely nights and failed dreams of England. But this visit home compels her to reflect on the events of her past, and on what they may mean for her future. 'Phillips' novel of being and becoming, of memory, and the mythology of writers and writing is a wonder. This is a gift of a book' Niven Govinden, author of All the Days and Nights 'This dark, glimmering beauty of a novel penetrates the English mist, illuminates the past and present and offers us the life of a great writer, in the heart and mind of this great writer, Caryl Phillips' Amy Bloom, author of White Houses 'Subtle and piercing... Phillips keeps on taking risks and telling powerful stories' Times Literary Supplement

Caryl Phillips's first novel tells the story of Leila, a nineteen-year-old woman living on a small Caribbean island in the 1950s. Unsatisfied with life on the island, Leila decides to leave her friends and follow her mother overseas, taking her restless husband Michael and her young son with her. Her subsequent passage to England brings her face to face with the consequences of the decisions she has made to determine her life on her own terms.

In this richly descriptive and haunting narrative, Caryl Phillips chronicles a journey through modern-day Europe, his quest guided by a moral compass rather than a map.  Seeking personal definition within the parameters of growing up black in Europe, he discovers that the natural loneliness and confusion inherent in long jorneys collides with the bigotry of the "European Tribe"-a global community of whites caught up in an unyielding, Eurocentric history.

Phillips deftly illustrates the scenes and characters he encounters, from Casablanca and Costa del Sol to Venice, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Moscow.  He ultimately discovers that "Europe is blinded by her past, and does not understand the high price of her churches, art galleries, and history as the prison from which Europeans speak."

In the afterword to the Vintage edition, Phillips revisits the Europe he knew as a young man and offers fresh observations.

Cambridge is a powerful and haunting novel set in that uneasy time between the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. It is the story of Emily Cartwright, a young woman sent from England to visit her father's West Indian plantation, and Cambridge, a plantation slave, educated and Christianised by his first master in England and now struggling to maintain his dignity.

Three plays by playwright and novelist Caryl Phillips, written in the 1980s and collected here for the first time. Strange Fruit is a powerful study of a black family caught between two cultures; Where There is Darkness examines the plight of a West Indian man, Albert Williams, on the eve of his return to the Caribbean after an absence of twenty-five years; The Shelter alternates between the late eighteenth-century and 1950s London, exploring the relationship between a black man and a white woman.

"I go half way round the world and back thinking I’d made some sort of discovery and come back to find the same damn lies, the same white lies, the same black lies." _x000D_ Alvin and Errol can’t picture much of a future for themselves. They’re young, Black and living in England in the 1980s, with an entire country and political system set against them. Instead they focus firmly on their past – the sunny Caribbean and heroic father they left behind when their mother brought them to England twenty years ago. _x000D_ But when Alvin returns home from his grandfather’s funeral a new version of their past emerges, and the two brothers are caught in a desperate struggle to unearth the truth about their existence. _x000D_ Powerful and compelling, Strange Fruit by Caryl Phillips (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize) is the story of a family caught between two cultures, and the uncrossable no man’s land that can come between parents and their children.

The English village is a place where people come to lick their wounds. Dorothy has walked away from a bad thirty-year marriage, an affair gone sour and a dangerous obsession. Between her visits to the doctor and the music lessons she gives to bored teenagers, she is trying to rebuild a life. It's not immediately clear why her neighbour, Solomon, is living in the village, but his African origin suggests a complex history that is at odds with his dull routine of washing the car and making short trips to the supermarket. Though all he has in common with the English is a shared language, it soon becomes clear that Solomon hopes that his new country will provide him with a safe haven. Gradually they establish a form of comfort in each other's presence that alleviates the isolation they both feel.