Caryl Phillips

Caryl Phillips (born March 13, 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist.

Quotes

 * I never really see a book in the context of what went before because when I finish a book I try to press the delete button so that it’s wiped off the hard drive…
 * On pushing a book that he’s published out of his mind so that he may start a new one in “YORKSHIRE CALLING: AN INTERVIEW WITH CARYL PHILLIPS” in Public Books (2015 May 1)


 * It felt uncomfortably foreign, I would say. Obviously, it was the first time I had been in a country where everybody looked like me. But obviously, culturally, it was completely alien. And I found people in the street in St. Kitts actually were calling me "English"..
 * On returning to St. Kitts during his 20s after emigrating to England with her parents during childhood in “'Lost Child' Author Caryl Phillips: 'I Needed To Know Where I Came From'” in NPR (2015 Mar 21)


 * Questions of identity have always played a large part in my thinking and writing; and, of course, race is a key component of identity. Certainly for me, and certainly in Britain.
 * On the recurring theme of his works in “CARYL PHILLIPS: INTERVIEW” in Mosaic Magazine (2012 Mar 19)


 * A writer often wants to change a reader’s perception about the world, which is a political act. But we have to work through character, so helping the reader to feel close to fictional characters is the gate through which we have to usher the reader. I am one of those writers who hopes to use character as a way of introducing the reader to a new way of thinking about the world.
 * On how writing might make a political or social statement in “CARYL PHILLIPS: INTERVIEW” in Mosaic Magazine (2012 Mar 19)