Jackie Kay

Thursday 23rd May 2024

location_city Leadmill, Sheffield

Jackie Kay

"The story of lesbian playwright, novelist and poet Jackie Kay's life is as fascinating as her literary works. Jackie Kay MBE was born in Scotland in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was adopted by a white couple at birth and was brought up in Glasgow, and this experience inspired her award-winning first collection of poetry, The Adoption Papers.

Subsequent collections have also gone on to win numerous literary awards including Other Lovers - inspired and influenced by the history of Afro-Caribbean people, which include a sequence of poems about bisexual blues-singer Bessie Smith. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies, and she has written widely for stage and television."