“I had to get to a point in my process from which I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about it. I had to be able to constantly add risk, interest and innovation to the process without becoming fixated on how the output would be perceived. In fact, I had to take my mind off what the end product would be, never mind how it would be liked. This freed me up to make some of the best and lasting of my artistic work.”
Roger Robinson is an award-winning writer and performer from Trinidad now living in Britain.
Roger Robinson in conversation with Gabriel Gbadamosi
Roger Robinson won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2019, and the following year, he spoke to Gabriel Gbadamosi about empathy in black writing, and migrant experience becoming rooted in words to keep us human.
Biography
Roger Robinson is an award-winning writer and performer, former Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and a key figure in Black British literature. His acclaimed collections include A Portable Paradise (winner of the T. S. Eliot and RSL Ondaatje Prizes), Home Is Not a Place (British Book Awards shortlist), The Butterfly Hotel, and Suckle.
His work has been translated into five languages and recognised by Decibel as influential to the Black British writing canon.
