The award-winning writer and Columbia University professor Caryl Phillips is making his first visit to Japan from Nov. 18-24.
Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, in 1958. He grew up in Leeds, England. After graduating from Oxford University in 1979 he wrote his first novel, "The Final Passage" (1985), describing the experiences of immigrants to Britain from the Caribbean in the late 1950s, for which he won the Malcolm X prize for fiction. In 1993 "Crossing the River," a narrative of two centuries of slavery and its aftermath, was shortlisted for the U.K.'s prestigious Booker Prize.
His work tackles such themes as displacement and slavery.
He will be giving three lectures and readings, drawing on his latest book, "A New World Order": at Seijo University on Nov. 19, 5:30-7 p.m. (call [03] 3482-1181); at Tokyo University of Foreign Languages on Nov. 21, from 6 p.m. (call [042] 330-5252) and at Ritumeikan University, Kyoto, on Nov. 22, 6-7:30 p.m. (call [075] 465-111, extn. 4042). Lectures in English, with partial translation.