Kei Miller was born in Jamaica in 1978 and moved to England in 2004 to study for an MA in Creative Writing. He is a novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, and blogger. He has published two novels: The Same Earth (2008) and The Last Warner Woman (2010); four collections of poems: Kingdom of Empty Bellies (2006), There is an Anger that Moves (2007), A Light Song of Light (2010), and The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion (2014), for which he won the Forward Prize for poetry; a collection of essays: Writing Down the Vision: Essays and Prophecies (2013), for which he won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; and a collection of short stories: Fear of Stones and Other Stories (2006). He also has his own blog, Under the Saltire Flag.

He has a PhD in Literature from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and he currently teaches at Royal Holloway, University of London. Recurring themes in his work include the experiences of the Caribbean diaspora, psychic fragmentation, and Caribbean forms of spirituality. Also running through his work is a philosophical exploration of language, including both oral and written forms.

In the context of the symposium “Altered States: Configuring Madness in Caribbean Literature,” Miller was present in Liège to give the opening keynote address. The following clip is from an interview he gave during the conference, in which he answered questions about the characters in his work that have traditionally been marginalised, such as the Warner Woman in his novel The Last Warner Woman and the Rastaman in his poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. He also explained how he matches a particular genre to the subject of his work and to the figures that he writes about.

Rebecca Romdhani

Rebecca Romdhani teaches English literature at the University of Liège. Her research focuses on Caribbean literature.