Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1961, to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was adopted as a baby by a white Scottish couple, Helen and John Kay, and grew up in Bishopbriggs, a suburb of Glasgow.[8] They adopted Jackie in 1961, having already adopted her brother, Maxwell, about two years earlier. Jackie and Maxwell also have siblings who were brought up by their biological parents.[9]
As a teenager she worked as a cleaner, working for David Cornwell—who wrote under the pen-name John le Carré—for four months. She recommended cleaning work to aspiring writers, saying: "It's great ... You're listening to everything. You can be a spy, but nobody thinks you're taking anything in." Cornwell and Kay met again in 2019; he remembered her and had been following her.[10]
In August 2007, Kay was featured in the fourth episode of the BBC Radio 4 series The House I Grew Up In, in which she talked about her childhood.[2]
Careeredit
Initially thinking of being an actor, she decided to concentrate on writing after Alasdair Gray, a Scottish artist and writer, read her poetry and told her that writing was what she should be doing.[12] She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical, The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991 and won the Saltire SocietyScottish First Book Award and a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1992.[13] It is a multiply voiced collection of poetry that deals with identity, race, nationality, gender, and sexuality from the perspectives of three women: an adopted biracial child, her adoptive mother, and her biological mother. Her other prizes include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, inspired by the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, a transgender man.[14]
In 1997, Kay published a biography of blues singer Bessie Smith; it was reissued in 2021.[15] An abridged version read by the author featured as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in the last week of February 2021.[16]
Kay writes extensively for stage (in 1988 her play Twice Over was the first by a Black writer to be produced by Gay Sweatshop Theatre Group),[17] screen and for children. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007, produced by Pam Fraser Solomon, during a season marking the bicentenary of the Slave Trade Act 1807,[18][19][20] and was published in printed form as a poem in 2008.[21]
In March 2016, Kay was announced as the next Scots Makar (national poet of Scotland), succeeding Liz Lochhead, whose tenure ended in January 2016.[27][28]
Kay is a lesbian.[32][33] In her twenties she gave birth to a son, Matthew (whose father is the writer Fred D'Aguiar), and later she had a 15-year relationship with poet Carol Ann Duffy.[34][35] During this relationship, Duffy had a daughter, Ella, whose biological father is fellow poet Peter Benson.[35][36]
^"Guardian Fiction Prize". www.fantasticfiction.com. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
^"Jackie Kay wins Scottish Book of the Year". www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk. 26 August 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
^"Our National Poet". Scottish Poetry Library. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
^"Celebrating Scotland's Makar". Scottish Government. 14 March 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
^Dobson, Charlotte (9 May 2015). "University of Salford officially appoints renowned poet Professor Jackie Kay as their new chancellor". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
^ abJackie Kay, "My old man: a voyage around our fathers", The Observer, 15 June 2008.
^"Jackie Kay (1961 – )". Scottish Women Poets. 1 April 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
^ abFlood, Alison (22 May 2020). "Scottish national poet Jackie Kay talks about racism she endured as a child". The Guardian.
^Ponsonby, Bernard (14 November 2019). "Obituary: John Kay, Communist stalwart". Herald Scotland. Herald and Times Group. Newsquest Media Group. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
^Tranter, Susan. "Jackie Kay - Literature". British Council. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
^"Jackie Kay". 9 November 2017. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
^Empire, Kitty (15 February 2021). "Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay review – a potent blues brew". The Guardian.
^"Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
^"Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company", Unfinished Histories – Recording the History of Alternative Theatre.
^Kay, Jackie (10 August 2020). "Missing faces: Jackie Kay on Scotland's involvement in the British slave trade". Pan Macmillan. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
^"BBC Radio 3". Bbc.co.uk. 25 March 2007. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
^"Drama on 3: The Lamplighter". 7 October 2007. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
^Ross, Peter (7 August 2019). "Jackie Kay on putting her adoption on stage – and getting a pay rise for her successor". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
^Gagiano, Annie (1 September 2019). "Recovering and recovering from an African past: four women's quest narratives". Journal of Transatlantic Studies. 17 (3): 269–289. doi:10.1057/s42738-019-00025-x. ISSN 1754-1018. S2CID 257159808.
^"Prof. Jackie Kay: Professor of Creative Writing". Newcastle University. Archived from the original on 27 April 2016. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
^"Jackie Kay – Hadassah in response to Esther" Archived 14 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Sixty-Six Books, Bush Theatre.
^"Appointment of new Chancellor", University of Salford, Greater Manchester, 17 October 2014.
^ScottishGovernment. "ScottishGovernment – News – Scotland's new Makar". news.scotland.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
^"Jackie Kay announced as new Scots Makar". BBC News. 15 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
^"BBC 100 Women 2020: Who is on the list this year?". BBC News. 23 November 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
^Foundation, LGBT. "Jackie Kay MBE -LGBT Foundation". lgbt.foundation. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
^Rustin, Susanna (27 April 2012). "A life in writing: Jackie Kay". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
^Brown, Helen (5 June 2010). "Jackie Kay: Interview". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
^ ab"Interview: Carol-Ann Duffy". Stylist. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
^Preston, John, "Carol Ann Duffy interview", The Telegraph, 11 May 2010.
^9 April 2013, Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, Georgetown University.
^Sir Neville C . Bardoliwalla OBE, C. B. E. (1 January 2006). "2006 New Year Honours (httpwww.mashpedia.net2006 New Year Honour) pdf". 2006 New Years Honours PDF.
^"Jackie Kay". British Council Literature. Archived from the original on 2 August 2013. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
^"The Royal Society of Edinburgh | 2016 Elected Fellows". Royalsoced.org.uk. Archived from the original on 8 October 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
^Parker, Charlie (28 December 2019). "New year honours list 2020: Makar Jackie Kay and Catriona Matthew among great Scots". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 27 May 2022.
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