Linton Kwesi Johnson: 'Class-ridden? Yes, but this still home'. By Sarah Morrison, The Independent
The last time Linton Kwesi Johnson was honoured in Britain, he made front-page news. When one broadsheet announced that the "reggae radical" had become the second living poet - and the only black one - to be published in the Penguin Modern Classic Series, alongside the likes of Yeats and Betjeman, the outrage in some quarters was instant. One academic complained that the publishers were "messing with the canon". A decade on, the man made infamous by his poem "Inglan is a bitch", is about to be honoured again. Tomorrow [i.e. December 3rd, 2012] English PEN will award him its prestigious Golden PEN Award for lifetime literary achievement. The Jamaican-born poet and musician, who described police brutality in Britain in the 1980s in poems such as "Sonny's Lettah", will join a list of recipients that includes Iris Murdoch, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, John Berger, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Drabble. full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/linton-kwesi-johnson-classridden-yes-but-this-is-still-home-8373870.html Linton Kwesi Johnson wins PEN Award 2012 http://www.englishpen.org/linton-kwesi-johnson-wins-pen-award-2012/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
