Jason Allen-Paisant

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Jason Allen-Paisant
Born1980 (age 45–46)
Jamaica
Alma materUniversity of the West Indies (Mona);
École normale supérieure (Paris);
University of Oxford
OccupationsPoet, writer and academic
EmployerUniversity of Manchester
Notable workThinking with Trees (2021)
Self-Portrait as Othello (2023)
AwardsOCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (2022)
T. S. Eliot Prize (2023)
Websitewww.jasonallenpaisant.com

Jason Allen-Paisant (born 1980) is a Jamaican poet, writer and academic, based in the UK. His second collection of poems, Self-Portrait as Othello, won the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Biography

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Early years and education

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Allen-Paisant grew up in a small village in Manchester Parish,[1] central Jamaica. His mother was a primary school teacher.[2][3] He attended the University of the West Indies (Mona), followed by further study at the École normale supérieure (Paris), and the University of Oxford, where he earned a DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) in Medieval & Modern Languages.[4]

Writing

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His dissertation was on theatre from the French- and English-speaking Caribbean and a monograph on Derek Walcott, Aimé Césaire and Bertolt Brecht, Théâtre dialectique postcolonial (Classiques Garnier),[5] was published in 2017. A second monograph, Engagements with Aimé Césaire: Thinking with Spirits, will be published in February 2024 with Oxford University Press.[6]

Allen-Paisant's first collection of poems, Thinking with Trees (2021),[7] won the poetry category of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.[8] His second collection, Self-Portrait as Othello (2023),[9] uses William Shakespeare's Othello to explore a black male immigrant's search for an identity and masculine role mode.[2] It was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 2023 and went on to win the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection[10] and the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize.[11] According to the Eliot Prize judging panel (which comprised Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul), Allen-Paisant's collection is "a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair."[12]

A work of creative non-fiction by Allen-Paisant, entitled The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican's Search for Freedom in Nature, was published in 2025 by Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin.[4][13]

Academic career

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Allen-Paisant is currently Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing in the Department of English, American Studies, and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.[4]

He is an associate editor of the literary magazine Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters.[14]

Personal life

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Allen-Paisant lives in Leeds, west Yorkshire, with his partner and their two children.[15]

Bibliography

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  • Thinking with Trees, Carcanet Press, 2021, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
  • Self-Portrait as Othello, Carcanet Press, 2023, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
  • The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican's Search for Freedom in Nature, Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin, 2025, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..

References

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  14. ^ "The Possibility of Tenderness", Penguin Books, 2025.
  15. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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