Crossing the River

Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts and now lives in London and New York. He has written for television, radio, theatre and cinema and is the author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction. Crossing the River was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Award. Caryl Phillips has also won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as being named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 1992 and one of the Best of Young British Writers 1993. A Distant Shore won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2004 and Dancing in the Dark was shortlisted in 2006.

"A compassionate, forceful and profoundly moving revelation" Scotland on Sunday "[T]here are gems of impassioned writing quilted within this ambitious cross-cultural novel of loss and reconciliation" Sunday Times "Epic and frequently astonishing" The Times "Crossing the River is dense with event and ingeniously structured. It requires concentration and is worth it" Independent "An ambitious exploration of oppression, loss and reconciliation that employs a collage of styles and ranges across continents and centuries" -- Nicci Gerrard Observer