Anthony Joseph is a British-Trinidadian poet, novelist, musician and lecturer described as ‘the leader of the black avant-garde in Britain’. His written work and performance occupies a space between surrealism, Jazz and the rhythms of Caribbean speech and music. Anthony’s latest album contains multitudes. Operating as a dedication to poetic ancestors and a coming together of musical generations, The Rich are Only Defeated When Running for their Lives is also an almighty jam. Recorded live last August, it shows off the prowess of a team of master musicians (Shabaka Hutchings among others) from Paris and London. Jason Yarde, who also produced Joseph’s 2018 album is credited as producer/composer/arranger – to startling, albeit intimate, effect.
He is the author of four poetry collections and three novels. His 2018 novel Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and long listed for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. His most recent publication is the experimental novel The Frequency of Magic. In 2019, he was awarded a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. In 2020 a Polish translation of his afrofuturist novel The African Origins of UFOs was published, followed by a Spanish edition of Kitch. His new collection Sonnets for Albert is forthcoming from Bloomsbury publishing in 2022.
As a musician, he has released eight critically acclaimed albums, and in 2020 received a Paul Hamblyn Foundation Composers Award. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University and is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Backed by veteran jazz musicians and newer players, the Trinidad-born, London-based poet summons spirits of the Caribbean diaspora to ask what it might take to build a better world.
Pitchfork
afro-blue to astro-black and what glimmers in between
The Times
Anthony Joseph // voice/poetry
Thibaut Remy // guitar
Denys Baptiste // tenor saxophone & bass clarinet
Colin Webster // Tenor Saxophone & flute
Andrew John // bass
Rod Youngs // drums
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