“Kei is doing something you don’t come across often: this is a beautifully voiced collection which struck us all with its boldness and wit. Many poets refer to multiple realities, different ways of observing the world. Kei doesn’t just refer, he articulates them.”
— Jeremy Paxman, Chair of the Forward Prize in 2014

2022 Things I Have Withheld is shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

2021 Kei’s collection of essays Things I Have Withheld was shortlisted for The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

Forthcoming in 2021: new series of essays It Is Always The Body (Canongate, May 2021)

2020 Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry (announcement September 2020)

2018 Recipient of an Anthony N. Sagba Caribbean Award for Excellence (Contribution to Art and Letters).

2017 Winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Augustown)

Forward Prize for Best Collection, 2014 (The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion)

Kei Miller is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer and a broadcaster.  His 2014 collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion won the Forward Prize for Best Collection. In April 2017 he won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for his novel Augustown.   In 2010, the Institute of Jamaica awarded him the Silver Musgrave medal for his contributions to Literature. 

His poetry has also been shortlisted for awards such as the Jonathan Llewelyn Rhys Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Scottish Book of the Year. His fiction has won the Una Marson Prize and has been shortlisted for the Phyllis Wheatley Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. 

Formerly an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa, a Visiting Writer at York University in Canada, a Reader at the University of Glasgow (until 2014), and a lecturer at Royal Holloway, he is currently a Professor of English & Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.  In 2018 he was a Judge of the Gordon Burn Prize. In 2020 he was a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

Represented by Renaissance One for bookings.

Kei Miller from the Next Generation Poets 2014 reads from his collection 'A Light Song of Light'. For more information, poetry and videos visit nextgenerationpoets.com

2017 - 2018 Event Highlights

2018

Judge of the Gordon Burn Prize

22 May Oxford Brookes University

13 Mar University of Bath (Corsham Campus)

28 Feb Cultural Exchanges Festival, De Montfort University

2017

Winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Literature (Augustown)

5 Oct  How We Feel Now, Humber Fest, Hull Central Library

17 Sep Brooklyn Book Festival

27 Aug Edinburgh Book Festival (with Neel Mukherjee)

25 Aug Shambala

1 Jul  Brontë Parsonage Museum

30 Jun  R.A.P Party, Africa Writes Festival, British Library

3 - 14 Jun  US Book Tour of Augustown

27 - 30 Apr Bocas Litfest, Trinidad