Jason Allen-Paisant

Jason Allen-Paisant (born 1980) is a Jamaican poet, writer and academic, based in the UK. His second collection of poems, Self-Portrait as Othello, won the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Jason Allen-Paisant
Born	1980 (age 44–45) Jamaica
Alma mater	University of the West Indies (Mona); École normale supérieure (Paris); University of Oxford
Occupation(s)	Poet, writer and academic
Employer	University of Manchester
Notable work	Thinking with Trees (2021) Self-Portrait as Othello (2023)
Awards	OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (2022) T. S. Eliot Prize (2023)
Website	www.jasonallenpaisant.com

Biography

Early years and education

Allen-Paisant grew up in a small village in Manchester Parish,^[1] central Jamaica. His mother was a primary school teacher.^[2][3] He attended the University of the West Indies (Mona), followed by further study at the École normale supérieure (Paris), and the University of Oxford, where he earned a DPhil (Doctor of Philosophy) in Medieval & Modern Languages.^[4]

Writing

His dissertation was on theatre from the French- and English-speaking Caribbean and a monograph on Derek Walcott, Aimé Césaire and Bertolt Brecht, Théâtre dialectique postcolonial (Classiques Garnier),^[5] was published in 2017. A second monograph, Engagements with Aimé Césaire: Thinking with Spirits, will be published in February 2024 with Oxford University Press.^[6]

Allen-Paisant's first collection of poems, Thinking with Trees (2021),^[7] won the poetry category of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.^[8] His second collection, Self-Portrait as Othello (2023),^[9] uses William Shakespeare's Othello to explore a black male immigrant's search for an identity and masculine role mode.^[2] It was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 2023 and went on to win the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection^[10] and the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize.^[11] According to the Eliot Prize judging panel (which comprised Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul), Allen-Paisant's collection is "a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair."^[12]

A work of creative non-fiction by Allen-Paisant, entitled The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican's Search for Freedom in Nature, was published in 2025 by Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin.^[4][13]

Academic career

Allen-Paisant is currently Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Critical Theory and Creative Writing in the Department of English, American Studies, and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.^[4]

He is an associate editor of the literary magazine Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters.^[14]

Personal life

Allen-Paisant lives in Leeds, west Yorkshire, with his partner and their two children.^[15]

Bibliography

• Thinking with Trees, Carcanet Press, 2021, ISBN 9781800171145.

• Self-Portrait as Othello, Carcanet Press, 2023, ISBN 9781800173118.

• The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican's Search for Freedom in Nature, Hutchinson Heinemann/Penguin, 2025, ISBN 9781529153620.