Event overview
Karen McCarthy Woolf in conversation with Dzifa Benson about her first novel Top Doll, published this month.
Born in London to English and Jamaican parents, Karen McCarthy Woolf is the author of two poetry collections and the editor of six literary anthologies. Shortlisted for the Forward Felix Dennis and Jerwood Prizes, her debut An Aviary of Small Birds tells the story of losing a son in childbirth and was an Observer Book of the Year. Her latest, Seasonal Disturbances, explores gentrification, the city and the sacred, was a winner in the inaugural Laurel Prize for ecological poetry and excerpted in the Financial Times and the Guardian.
She has presented and performed her work at literature festivals worldwide - in Mexico, Trinidad, Jamaica, Italy, America and China at a variety of venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican and King’s Place for Poetica Electronica, which showcased music collaborations with various dance and techno producers. Her poems have been translated into Turkish, Swedish, Spanish, Polish and Dutch, produced as animated and choreographed short film, exhibited by Poems on the Underground and dropped from a helicopter over the Houses of Parliament in a poetry ‘bombing’.
She has served as Chair and Judge of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize several times and was a judge of the National Poetry Competition in 2021 which made literary history when the panel awarded the prize to a black writer for the first time in 40 years.
Her debut novel Top Doll, published this month, gives voice to the many antique dolls collected by the reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark and left in her immaculate New York home when she dies at the age of 104. A story about love, betrayal and Barbies, set in several centuries and across several continents.
Karen teaches on the MA Creative Writing course at Goldsmiths.
Dzifa Benson is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist who was born in London (where she now lives) to Ghanaian parents. She grew up in Ghana, Nigeria and Togo.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 24 Jan 2024 | 5:00pm - 6:00pm |
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