CARYL PHILLIPS has been both immigrant and exile, traveler and teacher; he is a scholar of what he calls "broken history," the dislocation endemic to relocation, the fragility of uprootedness. Born in the West Indies and raised in England, Phillips has written that "Britain has been forged in the crucible of fusion--of hybridity." This interest led him to edit Extravagant Strangers: A Literature of Belonging, a collection of 39 British writers born outside of Britain; in his own work, it has provided him a polyphony of voices. In his 1997 novel The Nature of Blood, he ambitiously orchestrates time travel to document the establishment of the Israeli state. The resulting clash of chronology and space resonates strangely. 1993's Crossing The River is written as a slave ship's captain's log, then jumps to WWII, and was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Caryl Phillips reads courtesy of Seattle Arts & Lectures
Mon Mar 1
7:30 pm
5th Avenue Theater
621-2230
$7.50-$18.