Biography

Poet, novelist, playwright and essayist, Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 of Guyanese parents and brought up in Guyana. He returned to London when he was 12 for his secondary and tertiary education. In 1985, he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Kent, Canterbury and published his first collection of poetry, Mama Dot, the same year. Since then, he has published 10 books and his work has been translated into a dozen languages.

Many of his works are featured in Caribbean or colonial era settings and the inspiration behind his work is directly influenced by the experiences of his youth. "I am a black male who grew up in Guyana and England during the 60s and 70s," he said in an interview, "I would say that the major influence on my writing has been those two locations and those two decades."

Throughout his career, D'Aguiar has recieved numerous nominations and awards, among these are Bill of Rights, a story about the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, which was a finalist for the 1998 T.S. Eliot Prize. In 1996, he received The Guyana Prize for Literature for The Longest Memory, which recounts the story of an eighteenth-century Virginia slave named Whitechapel, who makes a damning decision after his son decides to flee the plantation on which they live. The later was also adapted for television by Channel 4 in the UK. His most recent collection of poems, Continental Shelf (Carcanet, 2009) was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot Prize for 2009. Read the reviews from The Guardian and NJ.com (to find the review, scroll down to the bottom of the web page, past a review about baseball).

His fifth novel to date, Bethany Bettany was published in 2003 and tells the story of a young Caribbean girl who is abandoned by her parents and is forced to make sense of the aftermath. Currently, he teaches at Virginia Tech where he is Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies, a two year professorship that is awarded to "an outstanding faculty member who contributes significantly to the growth and development of minority students, student athletes, and scholarly pursuits." He is Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies and English at Virginia Tech.