Ferdinand Dennis

Ferdinand Dennis
FRSL
Born (1956-03-18) 18 March 1956 (age 68)[1]
Kingston, Jamaica
EducationLeicester University (1975–78);
Birkbeck College, London University (1978–79)
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist and broadcaster
Notable workBehind the Frontlines: Journey into Afro-Britain (1988);
The Sleepless Summer (1989);
The Last Blues Dance (1996);
Duppy Conqueror (1998)
Awards1988 Martin Luther King Memorial Prize

Ferdinand Dennis FRSL (born 18 March 1956)[2] is a writer, broadcaster, journalist and lecturer, who is Jamaican by birth but at the age of eight moved to England, where his parents had migrated in the late 1950s.[3] Dr James Procter notes: "Perhaps as a result of his Caribbean background (a region probably marked more than any other by movements and migration), Dennis is a writer ultimately more concerned with routes than roots. This is foregrounded in much of his fictional work, notably his most recent and ambitious novel to date, Duppy Conqueror (1998), a novel which moves from 1930s Jamaica to postwar London and Liverpool, to Africa. Similarly, Dennis' non-fiction centres on journeying rather than arrival, from Behind the Frontlines: Journey into Afro-Britain (1988) to Voices of the Crossing: The Impact of Britain on Writers from Asia, the Caribbean and Africa (2000)."[2]

  1. ^ Aatkar, Sofia, "Ferdinand Dennis", The Literary Encyclopedia, 17 October 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Ferdinand Dennis" Archived 18 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, British Council, Literature Matters.
  3. ^ Ferdinand Dennis, "My father's island", The Guardian, 10 June 2000.