Playwright, poet, short-story and children's writer John Agard was born on 21 June 1949 in British Guiana (now Guyana).

 

He worked for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle newspaper as sub-editor and feature writer before moving to England in 1977, where he became a touring lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, travelling to schools throughout the UK to promote a better understanding of Caribbean culture. In 1993 he was appointed Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre, London, and became Poet in Residence at the BBC in London, an appointment created as part of a scheme run by the Poetry Society in London. He also played a key role in the 'Windrush' season of programmes in 1998. He won the Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry in 1997 and has travelled extensively throughout the world performing his poetry.

 

John Agard lives in south-east England. His poetry collection WE BRITS (2006), was shortlisted for the 2007 British Book Awards Decibel Writer of the Year award, and THE YOUNG INFERNO (2008), a poetic reworking of Dante's Inferno for young people, won the 2009 CLPE Poetry Award. His latest poetry collection is Clever Backbone (2009). A further Selected Poems, ALTERNATIVE ANTHEM, was also published in 2009.

John Agard