Reading and In Conversation: Olive Senior

Jamaican writer Olive Senior is the prizewinning author of 15 books of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s literature. She won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (for Summer Lightning) and was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Poetry (Over the Roofs of the World). Her other poetry books are Talking of Trees, Gardening in the Tropics (on the syllabus in Caribbean schools) and Shell. Her novel Dancing Lessons was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, was a Globe Best Book and was long listed for the IMPAC Dublin International Prize. Olive conducts writing workshops internationally and is on the faculty of the Humber School for Writers, Toronto. She resides in Toronto, but returns frequently to her homeland of Jamaica, which remains central to her work. 

Back in the UK for a rare visit, Olive’s York event will highlight her new collection of short stories The Pain Tree. She will also discuss her award-winning work of non-fiction, Dying to Better Themselves, which explodes the myth that the first major migration from the Caribbean was to the UK in the Windrush era; instead from one generation after abolition onwards a huge number travelled to Panama to build its railways and canal. 

Writers at York offers a lively programme of public readings and workshops, and aims to celebrate and explore the work of emerging and established contemporary writers.

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