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Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging
Shakespeare called Othello "an extravagant and wheeling stranger/Of here and every where." In this exciting anthology, Caryl Phillips has collected writings by thirty-nine extravagant British writers who were born outside of Britain and see it with clear and critical eyes. These eloquent and incisive voices prove that English literature, far from being pure or homogenous, has in fact been shaped and influenced by outsiders for over two hundred years.
Here are slave writers, such as Ignatius Sancho, an eightieth century African who became a friend to Samuel Johnson and Laurence Sterne; writers born in the colonies such as Thackeray, Kipling, and Orwell; "subject writers," such as C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul; foreign émigrés, such as Joseph Conrad and Kazuo Ishiguro; and postcolonial observers of the British scene, such as Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, and Anita Desai. With the eloquent and often inspiring collection, Phillips proves, if proof be needed, that the greatest literature is often born out of irreconcilable tensions between a writer and his or her society.
Here are slave writers, such as Ignatius Sancho, an eightieth century African who became a friend to Samuel Johnson and Laurence Sterne; writers born in the colonies such as Thackeray, Kipling, and Orwell; "subject writers," such as C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul; foreign émigrés, such as Joseph Conrad and Kazuo Ishiguro; and postcolonial observers of the British scene, such as Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, and Anita Desai. With the eloquent and often inspiring collection, Phillips proves, if proof be needed, that the greatest literature is often born out of irreconcilable tensions between a writer and his or her society.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 1997
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72 people want to read
About the author
Caryl Phillips
51 books214 followers Caryl Phillips was born in St.Kitts and came to Britain at the age of four months. He grew up in Leeds, and studied English Literature at Oxford University.
He began writing for the theatre and his plays include Strange Fruit (1980), Where There is Darkness (1982) and The Shelter (1983). He won the BBC Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio Play of the year with The Wasted Years (1984). He has written many dramas and documentaries for radio and television, including, in 1996, the three-hour film of his own novel The Final Passage. He wrote the screenplay for the film Playing Away (1986) and his screenplay for the Merchant Ivory adaptation of V.S.Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur (2001) won the Silver Ombu for best screenplay at the Mar Del Plata film festival in Argentina.
His novels are: The Final Passage (1985), A State of Independence (1986), Higher Ground (1989), Cambridge (1991), Crossing the River (1993), The Nature of Blood (1997), A Distant Shore (2003), Dancing in the Dark (2005), In the Falling Snow (2009), The Lost Child (2015), A View of the Empire at Sunset (2018) and Another Man in the Street (2025). His non-fiction: The European Tribe (1987), The Atlantic Sound (2000), A New World Order (2001), Foreigners (2007), and Colour Me English (2011). He is the editor of two anthologies: Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging (1997) and The Right Set: An Anthology of Writing on Tennis (1999). His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a British Council Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for Crossing the River which was also shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. A Distant Shore was longlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, and won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize; Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond the Margins Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts, and recipient of the 2013 Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
He has taught at universities in Ghana, Sweden, Singapore, Barbados, India, and the United States, and in 1999 was the University of the West Indies Humanities Scholar of the Year. In 2002-3 he was a Fellow at the Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Formerly Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order at Columbia University, he is presently Professor of English at Yale University. He is an Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford University.
A regular contributor to The Guardian and The New Republic, his most recent book is, Another Man in the Street.
(taken from carylphillips.com official web site)
He began writing for the theatre and his plays include Strange Fruit (1980), Where There is Darkness (1982) and The Shelter (1983). He won the BBC Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio Play of the year with The Wasted Years (1984). He has written many dramas and documentaries for radio and television, including, in 1996, the three-hour film of his own novel The Final Passage. He wrote the screenplay for the film Playing Away (1986) and his screenplay for the Merchant Ivory adaptation of V.S.Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur (2001) won the Silver Ombu for best screenplay at the Mar Del Plata film festival in Argentina.
His novels are: The Final Passage (1985), A State of Independence (1986), Higher Ground (1989), Cambridge (1991), Crossing the River (1993), The Nature of Blood (1997), A Distant Shore (2003), Dancing in the Dark (2005), In the Falling Snow (2009), The Lost Child (2015), A View of the Empire at Sunset (2018) and Another Man in the Street (2025). His non-fiction: The European Tribe (1987), The Atlantic Sound (2000), A New World Order (2001), Foreigners (2007), and Colour Me English (2011). He is the editor of two anthologies: Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging (1997) and The Right Set: An Anthology of Writing on Tennis (1999). His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
He was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 1992 and was on the 1993 Granta list of Best of Young British Writers. His literary awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a British Council Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for Crossing the River which was also shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize. A Distant Shore was longlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize, and won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize; Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond the Margins Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of the Arts, and recipient of the 2013 Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
He has taught at universities in Ghana, Sweden, Singapore, Barbados, India, and the United States, and in 1999 was the University of the West Indies Humanities Scholar of the Year. In 2002-3 he was a Fellow at the Centre for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Formerly Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order at Columbia University, he is presently Professor of English at Yale University. He is an Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford University.
A regular contributor to The Guardian and The New Republic, his most recent book is, Another Man in the Street.
(taken from carylphillips.com official web site)
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December 7, 2015-what it takes to be considered a British writer?
Caryl Phillips has been called/labelled a: "British writer...a post-colonial writer...a West-Indian writer...a black writer...an Afro-American writer...". He seems to dislike any of those labels.He even jokes: if not seen his photo (on the book) he might be thought as being a "woman writer".
He was born in St Kitts, then moved to Leeds, UK: he was four months old. He's been, for many years, asked "where is he really from?". He thought "you don't live between cultures; you live with them"..."Back in the early 1990s there was this notion that suddenly you had all these darkies with strange names getting published and this was an anomaly". "But the very condition of Britain, as Daniel Defoe said, is a mongrel condition". "It has been for hundred of years".
(Daniel Defoe)
On May 10th 1999, CP got interviewed by Newsweek; he spoke about himself and the book "Extravagant Strangers".
He defined the book as "an anthology that covers more than 200 years of works by authors who were not born in Britain but are part of the British literary
tradition".
(Ignatious Sancho)
(R. Kipling)
(J. Conrad)
(V. S. Naipul)
(D. Lessing)
(G. Orwell)
...
This book is about Ignatious Sancho,Rudyard Kipling,Joseph Conrad,V.S Naipul,Doris Lessing,George Orwell, Salman Rushdie,Ben Okri,Anita Desai,and Kazuo Ishiguro...to name some. The fact that they were born "abroad" turns into a sort of literary advantage: "out of the tension between the individual and his or her society...the finest writing is often produced". And yet for many of these writers it was not easy attaining to the level of notoriety.
Trying to define where his home was, in that interview he said: "It's where my books are"; then in New York.
I got amazed when listening to a reading of Caryl's essay "Color me English" back in September 25, 2011 (at the
Central Library,Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Center), by himself*. His own biographical trajectory testifies in an absolute way the above mentioned difficulties.
Phillips spoke about "questions deeply personal",still pertinent,though he's now an American citizen,retaining British citizenship. Questions of "belonging,identity and participation". Questions about "the color of your passport" (after 9/11)...or of "your skin"...,acute questions.
Take a look at his years in UK:
1-he arrives to Leeds,a baby,still; at 5,he recalls attending a "strange school"...where he had to "stay on one side of the line", though he wished to belong to the other side; he was part of a "different" group; there were those "neatly dressed" and the "scruffy" one.
2-At 7 he changed school; no girls in.
3-At 8 he discovered a passion for books...from the local library, despite the limit "4 at a time";he loved "adventure stories" but then the "germ" talk led mother to make books "forbidden".
4-While 9 years old, parents divorced; Caryl wrote a story, but his father,an immigrant, a "subject of the British Empire", had no imagination; so, talent was not recognized.
...at 18...he studied Jung and Freud...;he wanted to understand people; his tutor told him:if you want to understand about people,study English Literature,not Psychology.
...At 20, he travels to the US; in a California beach, he reads Native Son by Richard Wright.Now he "knows" what to do about his life.
Literature and race;the Psychology of racial identity...and its literary aspects...a never-ending theme.
Talent has no borders.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio/#/s...
By the way, I like the music of the "black Mozart": Le Chevalier de Saint-George (Joseph Bologne) was born in Guadeloupe
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELzEJ...
Caryl Phillips has been called/labelled a: "British writer...a post-colonial writer...a West-Indian writer...a black writer...an Afro-American writer...". He seems to dislike any of those labels.He even jokes: if not seen his photo (on the book) he might be thought as being a "woman writer".
He was born in St Kitts, then moved to Leeds, UK: he was four months old. He's been, for many years, asked "where is he really from?". He thought "you don't live between cultures; you live with them"..."Back in the early 1990s there was this notion that suddenly you had all these darkies with strange names getting published and this was an anomaly". "But the very condition of Britain, as Daniel Defoe said, is a mongrel condition". "It has been for hundred of years".
(Daniel Defoe)
On May 10th 1999, CP got interviewed by Newsweek; he spoke about himself and the book "Extravagant Strangers".
He defined the book as "an anthology that covers more than 200 years of works by authors who were not born in Britain but are part of the British literary
tradition".
(Ignatious Sancho)
(R. Kipling)
(J. Conrad)
(V. S. Naipul)
(D. Lessing)
(G. Orwell)
...
This book is about Ignatious Sancho,Rudyard Kipling,Joseph Conrad,V.S Naipul,Doris Lessing,George Orwell, Salman Rushdie,Ben Okri,Anita Desai,and Kazuo Ishiguro...to name some. The fact that they were born "abroad" turns into a sort of literary advantage: "out of the tension between the individual and his or her society...the finest writing is often produced". And yet for many of these writers it was not easy attaining to the level of notoriety.
Trying to define where his home was, in that interview he said: "It's where my books are"; then in New York.
I got amazed when listening to a reading of Caryl's essay "Color me English" back in September 25, 2011 (at the
Central Library,Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Center), by himself*. His own biographical trajectory testifies in an absolute way the above mentioned difficulties.
Phillips spoke about "questions deeply personal",still pertinent,though he's now an American citizen,retaining British citizenship. Questions of "belonging,identity and participation". Questions about "the color of your passport" (after 9/11)...or of "your skin"...,acute questions.
Take a look at his years in UK:
1-he arrives to Leeds,a baby,still; at 5,he recalls attending a "strange school"...where he had to "stay on one side of the line", though he wished to belong to the other side; he was part of a "different" group; there were those "neatly dressed" and the "scruffy" one.
2-At 7 he changed school; no girls in.
3-At 8 he discovered a passion for books...from the local library, despite the limit "4 at a time";he loved "adventure stories" but then the "germ" talk led mother to make books "forbidden".
4-While 9 years old, parents divorced; Caryl wrote a story, but his father,an immigrant, a "subject of the British Empire", had no imagination; so, talent was not recognized.
...at 18...he studied Jung and Freud...;he wanted to understand people; his tutor told him:if you want to understand about people,study English Literature,not Psychology.
...At 20, he travels to the US; in a California beach, he reads Native Son by Richard Wright.Now he "knows" what to do about his life.
Literature and race;the Psychology of racial identity...and its literary aspects...a never-ending theme.
Talent has no borders.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio/#/s...
By the way, I like the music of the "black Mozart": Le Chevalier de Saint-George (Joseph Bologne) was born in Guadeloupe
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELzEJ...
Want to read
January 16, 2008Am intrigued to read this. I went to university with Caryl Phillip's brother Tony, which I know isn't the best reason to read a book, but it's one reason!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews