Fred D'Aguiar | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1960-02-02)2 February 1960 (age 65) London, England |
| Occupation | Poet, novelist, playwright, Professor of English atVirginia Tech |
| Alma mater | University of Kent (1985) |
| Genre | Fiction,poetry,stage plays |
| Notable works | Poetry: Mama Dot (1985) Airy Hall (1989) Novels: The Longest Memory (1994) |
| Notable awards |
|
Fred D'Aguiar (born 2 February 1960) is a British poet, novelist, and playwright.[1] He is currently Professor of English at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Fred D'Aguiar was born inLondon, England, in 1960 to Guyanese parents, Malcolm Frederick D'Aguiar and Kathleen Agatha Messiah.[2] In 1962 he was taken toGuyana, living there with his grandmother until 1972, when he returned to England at the age of 12.[2][3][4][5]
D'Aguiar trained as apsychiatric nurse before reading African and Caribbean Studies at theUniversity of Kent,Canterbury, graduating in 1985.[5] On graduating he applied for aPhD on the Guyanese authorWilson Harris at theUniversity of Warwick, but – after winning two writers-in-residency positions, atBirmingham University and theUniversity of Cambridge (where he was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow from 1989 to 1990) – his PhD studies "receded from [his] mind" and he began to focus all of his energies on creative writing.[3][4]
In 1994, D'Aguiar moved to the United States to take up a Visiting Writer position atAmherst College,Amherst, Massachusetts (1992–94).[3][5] Since then, he has taught atBates College,Lewiston, Maine (Assistant Professor, 1994–95) and theUniversity of Miami where he held the position of Professor of English andCreative Writing.[3][5] In 2003 he took up the position of Professor of English and Co-Director of theMaster of Fine Arts inCreative Writing atVirginia Tech. In the fall of 2015, he became a Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing atUCLA, which post ended in 2019.[6]
D'Aguiar fathers a son with fellow poetJackie Kay.[7]
D'Aguiar's first collection of poetry,Mama Dot[8] (Chatto, 1985), was published "to much acclaim".[2][5] It centres on the eponymous "archetypal" grandmother figure, Mama Dot, and was noted for its fusion of standard English andNation language.[9] Along with his 1989 collectionAiry Hall (named after the village in Guyana where D'Aguiar spent his childhood),Mama Dot won theGuyana Poetry Prize.[8] Where D'Aguiar's first two poetry collections were set in Guyana, his third –British Subjects (1993) – explores the experiences of peoples of the West Indian diaspora in London.[10] London was also the focus of another long poem,Sweet Thames, which was broadcast as part of theBBC "Worlds on Film" series on 3 July 1992 and won theCommission for Racial Equality Race in the Media Award.[11]
After turning to writing novels for a period of time, D'Aguiar returned to the poetic mode in 1998, publishingBill of Rights (1998): a long narrative poem centred on theJonestown massacre in Guyana (1979) told in several Guyanese versions of English, fusing patois, Creole and Nation Language with standard vernacular.[12] It was shortlisted for the 1998T. S. Eliot Prize.Bill of Rights was followed by another narrative poem,Bloodlines (2000), which revolves around the story of a black slave and her white lover.[5] His 2009 collection of poetry,Continental Shelf, centres on a response to theVirginia Tech Massacre in which 32 people were killed by a student in 2007.[13] It was a finalist for the 2009T. S. Eliot Prize.[14]
D'Aguiar's first novel,The Longest Memory (1994), tells the story of Whitechapel, a slave on an 18th-century Virginia plantation. The book won both theDavid Higham Prize for Fiction and theWhitbread First Novel Award.[15][16][17] It was adapted for television and televised byChannel 4 in the UK. Returning to themes he had earlier developed inBritish Subjects, D'Aguiar in his 1996 novel,Dear Future, explores the history of the West Indian diaspora through a fictional account of the lives of one extended family.[18][19]
His third novel,Feeding the Ghosts (1997), was inspired by a visit D'Aguiar made to theMerseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool and is based on the true story of theZong massacre, in which 132 slaves were thrown from aslave ship into the Atlantic for insurance purposes.[5][20] According to historical accounts, one slave survived and climbed back onto the ship; and in D'Aguiar's narrative this slave – about whom there is next to no historical information – is developed as the fictional character Mintah.[20]
D'Aguiar's fourth novel,Bethany Bettany (2003), centres on a five-year-old Guyanese girl, Bethany, whose suffering has been read by some as symbolising that of a nation (Guyana) seeking to make itself whole again.[15][21] His 2014 novelChildren of Paradise is a fictional reimagining of theJonestown massacre, told from the perspective of a mother and child living at the commune.[22]
D'Aguiar's plays includeHigh Life, first produced at theAlbany Empire in London in 1987, andA Jamaican Airman Foresees His Death, performed at theRoyal Court Theatre, London, in 1991. His radio playMr Reasonable – about a freed black slave, a skilled silk weaver, who is engaged byShakespeare to make theatrical costumes – was broadcast onBBC Radio 4 on 10 April 2015.[23]
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