Philip Nanton (born 1947) is a
Vincentian writer, poet and spoken-word performer, based in Barbados.[2] A sociologist by training, who also teaches cultural studies, he is Honorary Research Associate at the
University of Birmingham, and lectures at the
University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.[3] He has been a contributor on Caribbean culture and literature to journals and magazines such as The Caribbean Review of Books, Shibboleths: a Journal of Theory and Criticism and Caribbean Quarterly,[3] and as a spoken-word artist has performed his work at festivals internationally.[4][5][6] In 2012, he represented St. Vincent & the Grenadines at
Poetry Parnassus in
London.[7][8]
Nanton's published books include Island Voices: From St Christopher to the Barracudas and Frontiers of the Caribbean (2014), Canouan Suite and Other Pieces (2016), and Riff: The Shake Keane Story (2021).
Biography
Born in St Vincent & the Grenadines, Philip Nanton studied and lived in England between 1960 and 2000, when he relocated to Barbados.[3][9] He began his career in British local government policymaking, and completed his D.Phil at the
University of Sussex (1986), following which he combined academic work with being a creative writer.[3] Among his publications are two edited anthologies of literary criticism. He has written of his "personal journey, away from conventional disciplinary analysis, primarily sociological, to the use of creative expression for social analysis in the context of the Caribbean."[10]
Also a broadcaster, Nanton has made radio documentaries on Caribbean literature and culture, including presenting for
BBC Radio 4 in 1998 What Does Mr Swanzy Want?, the story of Caribbean Voices, an influential programme of the 1940s and '50s, and its producer
Henry Swanzy.[12]
In 2008, Nanton produced a spoken-word CD entitled Island Voices from St Christopher & the Barracudas, which was the basis of a 2014 book of the same name published by
Papillote Press.[13]
His collection of creative writings Canouan Suite and Other Pieces, a finalist for the 2014 Hollick Arvon Prize for Caribbean Writers (now the
Emerging Caribbean Writers Prize) at the
Bocas Lit Fest,[14] was published in 2016 by Papillote Press, and was highly recommended for a 2018
Casa de las Américas Prize for Anglophone Caribbean Literature.[3] In 2017, Nanton published Frontiers of the Caribbean (
Manchester University Press), described by Robert Edison Sandiford as a "blend of the 'scholarly' and the 'creative'."[15]
Nanton's most recently published book is Riff: The Shake Keane Story (2021), a biography of the Vincentian jazz musician and poet
Shake Keane.[3][16][17] Reviewing Riff (which Nanton dedicates to photojournalist and historian
Val Wilmer), jazz critic
John Fordham wrote: "Nanton is closely attuned to the expressiveness of the local Creole-derived dialect's vowel-stretches and musicality, and to those issues of migration, masculinity and nationalism that profoundly shaped his subject's life. ...Philip Nanton's fine book opens a window on both a jazz story and a literary story that the chroniclers of both fields have largely bypassed."[18] In Caribbean Intelligence, John Stevenson's review concluded: "Nanton admirably succeeds in writing a highly engaging account of one of the Caribbean’s legendary creative forces."[19]
Honours and recognition
In 2012, Nanton's poem "Punctuation Marks" – from The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry (edited by
Ian McDonald and
Stewart Brown, 1992) – represented Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the project Poetry 2012: The Written World, in which a poem was chosen to capture the spirit of each nation competing in the
2012 Olympic Games in a collaboration with
BBC Radio Scotland.[20][21]
Bibliography
Books
(As editor) Remembering the Sea: An Introduction to Frank A. Collymore (2004)
(Co-edited with Nick Toczec and
Yann Lovelock) Melanthika: An Anthology of Pan-Caribbean Writing (L. W. M. Publications, 1977,
ISBN9780905393018)
Island Voices from St. Christopher and the Barracudas; artwork by Caroline "booops" Sardine (
Papillote Press, 2014,
ISBN978-0957118768)
Canouan Suite and Other Pieces, poetry (Papillote Press, 2016,
ISBN978-0993108679)
Riff: The Shake Keane Story, biography (Papillote Press, 2021,
ISBN9781999776893)
Selected shorter writings
"What Does Mr. Swanzy Want – Shaping or Reflecting? An Assessment of Henry Swanzy's Contribution to the Development of Caribbean Literature", Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 1 (March 2000), pp. 61–72. Originally in Kunapipi Vol. XX, No. 1 (1998).[22]
"Shake Keane's Poetic Legacy", in Sandra Courtman (ed.), The Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, Vol. 1, 2000.[23]
"'All that Greek manure under the green bananas': Migration in Derek Walcott's Omeros and Homer's The Odyssey". Migration Studies, Volume 6, Issue 3, November 2018, pp. 472–476 (
https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx068).
"Caribbean 'frontier societies' like St Vincent are defined by the ever-present interplay between the civilised and the wild",
London School of Economics, 10 December 2018.[26]
"Belonging and a Sense of Place", Writers Mosaic, 2021.[27]
"Seeing Slantwise", Arts Etc, 30 December 2022.[28]