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Jackie KayJackie Kay
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Bibliography |
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Critical perspective
BiographyJackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was adopted by a white couple at birth and was brought up in Glasgow, studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Stirling University where she read English.
Her novella, Sonata, was published in 2006; her book of poems Darling: New and Selected Poems in 2007; and her dramatised poem, The Lamplighter, in 2008. The Lamplighter was shortlisted for the 2009 Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award.
Jackie Kay lives in Manchester. In 2006, she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.
Genres (in alphabetical order)Drama, Fiction, Poetry, Short stories
BibliographyA Dangerous Knowing: Four Black Women Poets Sheba, 1984 Chiaroscuro Methuen, 1986 Gay Sweatshop: Four Plays and a Company (includes 'Twice Over') Methuen, 1989 Kay, Agard, D'Aguiar, Berry (audio-cassette) Bluefoot Cassette (British Library National Sound Archive), 1990 That Distance Apart Turret, 1991 The Adoption Papers Bloodaxe, 1991 Twice Through the Heart English National Opera, 1991 Two's Company Blackie, 1992 Other Lovers Bloodaxe, 1993 Hearsay: Performance Poems Plus (audio-cassette) 57 Production, 1994 Three Has Gone Blackie, 1994 Penguin Modern Poets 8 (Merle Collins, Jackie Kay and Grace Nichols) Penguin, 1996 Bessie Smith Absolute, 1997 Off Colour Bloodaxe, 1998 Teeth (audio-cassette) 57 Production, 1998 Trumpet Picador, 1998 The Frog Who Dreamed She was an Opera Singer Bloomsbury, 1999 Strawgirl Macmillan, 2002 Why Don't You Stop Talking Picador, 2002 International Connections: New Plays for Young People (contributor) Faber and Faber, 2003 Life Mask Bloodaxe, 2005 Sonata Picador, 2006 Wish I Was Here Picador, 2006 Darling: New and Selected Poems Bloodaxe, 2007 Red, Cherry Red Bloomsbury, 2007 The Lamplighter Bloodaxe, 2008
Prizes and awards1991 Eric Gregory Award 1992 Forward Poetry Prize (commendation) The Adoption Papers 1992 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award The Adoption Papers 1992 Scottish Arts Council Book Award The Adoption Papers 1993 Signal Poetry Award Two's Company 1994 Somerset Maugham Award Other Lovers 1998 Guardian Fiction Prize Trumpet 1999 Signal Poetry Award The Frog Who Dreamed She was an Opera Singer 2000 Authors' Club First Novel Award Trumpet 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (shortlist) Trumpet 2003 Cholmondeley Award 2006 MBE 2007 British Book Awards Decibel Writer of the Year Wish I Was Here 2007 National Short Story Competition (shortlist - 'How To Get Away With Suicide') 2008 CLPE Poetry Award Red, Cherry Red 2009 Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award (shortlist) The Lamplighter
Critical Perspective
Originally working on both plays and poetry during the 1980s, Kay first made a significant impact with her first full length poetry collection, The Adoption Papers (1991). Drawing heavily on her own background as the child of a black father and white mother, raised by adoptive white parents in Scotland, the book explores issues of race, individuality, parenthood, and love. In its long eponymous sequence, the voices of the adoptive mother, birth mother and daughter are distinguished effectively by different typefaces. Other Lovers appeared in 1993, featuring poems about jazz and blues singer Bessie Smith:
‘Why do I remember the blues?
In Off Colour (1998) the poems circle around the themes of sickness and health. The book also includes ‘Maw Broon Visits a Therapist’ – the first of an ongoing series of humorous and perceptive poems using the voice of the famous Scottish cartoon character. These three collections cemented Kay’s reputation for catching the nuances of speech, creating a variety of convincing poetic voices, and mixing melancholy or seriousness with humour.
Although she had previously published a prose book about Bessie Smith, it wasn’t until 1998 that Kay’s first fiction appeared in print. Her novel Trumpet also drew on her love of jazz, telling the story of Joss Moody, a fictional Scottish trumpeter who, it emerges on his death, lived as a man but was really a woman. The book instantly garnered acclaim both from prize-giving panels and the reading public, and one aspect which was hailed as particularly successful was the book’s use of multiple perspectives. These first- and third-person accounts not just of Moody’s widow, his son, and the journalist trying to document the scandal, but also those with fascinating ‘bit parts’ in his life and death – the doctor, the registrar, the family cleaner – all build up a compelling composite picture of Moody’s character. Kay’s aim, she has said, was ‘to show how differently it is possible to view one life. I wanted to have a multiple-voiced narrative also so that it would be like a piece of jazz, with several instruments having their solo turns. I wanted to build a world in voices so that the reader too could make up Joss from all those different pieces.’
Where other writers, buoyed by the success of their first novel, may have felt a compulsion to produce more of the same, Kay set off along a different path and began writing for children. She has produced several collections of highly engaging poetry and plays for young people, as well as the novel Strawgirl (2002). ‘I don't like writing for children that is “writing for children”’, she says. ‘If it is any good, then adults will like it too. When I create a voice or a character, I go through the same process whether that voice is a child’s or an adult’s. When I am writing for children, my own childhood – my past – comes swimming back. I like to keep the conversation open between myself as an adult and myself as a child. When I am creating children’s characters, the gap between childhood and adulthood doesn't seem all that large.’
In 2002 Kay published her first collection of short stories, Why Don’t You Stop Talking, and seemed instantly at home with the genre. Indeed, her achieved expertise with poetry and fiction appears to have been the ideal preparation for a form which embraces the best of both. The stories in this collection, and in Wish I Was Here (2006) are character-driven pieces which succeed in the first instance by creating a sense of authenticity and immediacy. Many of Kay’s characters are drawn from the unfashionable literary shadows: the middle-aged, the unloved, the overweight, the disappointed. Her stories give a voice to those from these often-ignored ranks, and gain our compassion through the use of shrewdly-observed humour which is at its best when at its most bittersweet.
In some of her more recent poetry, Kay again explores an interest in blurring the line between reality and fiction, biography and story – as well as demonstrating her skill at mixing sadness with humour and affirmation. Life Mask (2005) plots a very personal passage from loss and grief at the break-up of a long-term relationship (a theme which also recurs in Wish I Was Here), through gradual acceptance, to the eventual start of a new life. She says: ‘I like books which take you on a journey and, to me, Life Mask is a journey from darkness to light. People have told me it’s very upsetting in parts, but without love, life isn’t worth living.’
Kay’s work is, above all, compassionate. Her ability to create authentic voices which establish believable characters draws the reader in, surreptitiously shifts their perspective, and generates empathy. By often choosing to let the voices of her characters speak without authorial comment, she creates stories which seem to tell themselves, whose casual, immediately engaging style – ‘as though she is speaking to you at a bus stop’, as one reviewer said in The Irish Times – masks their skilful crafting. And her work also conveys an ongoing belief in the power of stories and poems not just to promote understanding and empathy, but to reveal, dignify and transform lives.
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