Jamaican writer receives £50,000 grant
Posted on 17/03/2003Jamaican-born writer and performer Jean 'Binta' Breeze has received a grant of more than £50,000 to begin work on her first novel, in which she aims to explore the oral histories of Jamaican women and transfer the choreography of a traditional Caribbean dance into literary form.
Breeze was appointed Poet Laureate for Black History Month 2002. She received the Fellowship grant of £53,650 from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
Spread over two years, the fellowship funds allow Breeze time to spend a year in Jamaica absorbing the oral traditions of women’s storytelling in rural areas and working with indigenous music communities. The second year will be devoted to producing her novel.
The work will trace the lives of five generations of Jamaican women, based around the ‘quadrille formation’, a dance involving four couples in a square set. The choreography of the traditional dance will be transferred into a literary form, exploring narrative, voice and rhythm.
Breeze has lived and worked in England for the past 16 years, and, during this time, has published four collections of poetry, released three recordings, written for the stage and screen and had her work included in numerous anthologies.
She studied at the Jamaican School of Drama and began writing poetry in the 1970s, inspired by the birth of ‘dub’.
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