Jackie Kay by Alden, Tasha; Tolan, Fiona;

Short description:

Jackie Kay: Critical Essays offers the first full-length critical study of Jackie Kay’s work. It brings together a range of essays by international scholars to examine a writer who has expanded the scope of British literature. 

Long description:

Jackie Kay: Critical Essays offers the first full-length critical study of Jackie Kay’s work. It brings together a range of essays by international scholars to examine a writer who has expanded the scope of British literature.

Kay’s powerful, trailblazing writings include plays, poetry, long-form fiction, short stories, children’s literature, biography, autobiography and more. She was the Scots Makar (the national poet) from 2016 to 2021 and has won or been shortlisted for over 20 literary awards and prizes. This collection addresses the full range of Kay’s writing, from her earliest poetry and fiction of the 1980s through to her most recent publications, including her lesser-examined works such as her dramas and her writing for children. Significant themes and concerns, including race, national identity, family and life writing, gender and sexuality, are all examined in new critical essays that greatly expand understanding of Kay’s canon. The contributors show that Kay’s work is remarkable for its range of genres, its consistent reinvention of forms, and its marriage of intimate, domestic depictions of individual lives with broad political and philosophical themes.

This book is aimed at students and scholars of contemporary British fiction, Black British literature, Scottish literature, and contemporary women’s writing.

A fantastic new resource on the crucial work of Scottish poet Jackie Kay, Jackie Kay: Critical Essays breaks boundaries by being the first book-length study of her writing. A rich array of essays explores the whole spectrum of Kay’s work, including her drama and writing for children, and extends all the way to her 2024 collection May Day. Jackie Kay emerges from these pages as among the most significant British writers of our time – always most in earnest and moving when most witty and dry. Her work affirms a deep sense of connectedness to these islands: ‘My country’, she observes, ‘has started to speak my language / And I am no longer alone’.

Elleke Boehmer, FRSL FRHistS, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford

A book that stays true to the generous spirit that is Jackie Kay, this collection illuminates the richness and range of her work. By situating her writing in different critical and theoretical contexts, it makes clear the political and artistic significance it has acquired over many years. Each of the essays offers a thoughtful perspective on an aspect of her career and the impact of this wonderful writer shines through them all.

Glenda Norquay, Professor Emerita, Scottish Literary Studies

Table of Contents:

Foreword: Full Fig - Jackie Kay; Introduction - Tasha Alden and Fiona Tolan; 1. Opening Out: Jackie Kay’s Many Voices - Nancy K. Gish; 2. From Great White Mothers to Black Sisters: Jackie Kay, Feminism and the 1980s -Fiona Tolan; 3. “The Presence that Absence Makes”: the Aesthetic of the Secret in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet - C.J. Griffin; 4. Stacy Ann Creech and Karen Sands-O’Connor, ‘“My Face is a Map”: Place, Truth, and Belonging in Jackie Kay’s Children’s Books’; 5. Liminality and Intimacy in Jackie Kay’s Wish I Was Here - Ana Garcia-Soriano; 6. Diversifying Modes of National Identity in Jackie Kay’s Fiere - Tara Brusselaers and Elisabeth Bekers; 7. A Museum of Voices: Ekphrastic Encounters in the Poetry of Jackie Kay - Lourdes López-Ropero; 8. Jackie Kay’s Monumental Poetics - Deirdre Osborne; 9. The Romance of Scottish Communism: Politics and the Family in Jackie Kay’s May Day’ - Peter Ely; Index