Elleke Boehmer

In this interview with Elleke Boehmer, Kei Miller reflects on his work, the politics of literary representation, how influenced he is by ideas of his readers or audiences, and how he uses and engages with different voices or forms of address in his writing.

How ought we to present words for people to hear them? What manner of presenting words will be seen as obnoxious or raucous or combative? And who decides on those categories? A big part of what I’m interested in is suggesting that there is a volume at which we might pitch words, that has often been dismissed, but there is music there, and there is complexity there, and there is beauty there.

Recorded on 18 July 2019 at the ACLALS conference in Auckland, New Zealand.

Cite this: Boehmer, Elleke and Kei Miller. “Interview with Kei Miller.” Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds, 2019, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 9 February 2026.

The post Interview with Kei Miller appeared first on writers make worlds.

Biography

Writing

Miller’s first book Fear of Stones and other stories (2006) was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and he has subsequently won the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde, the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence, the Prix Les Afriques, and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature twice, for both fiction and his most recent novel Augustown (2016). James Procter describes Miller’s first novel The Same Earth as a book that ‘more than demonstrates the author’s ability as a captivating storyteller full of wit, and lively satirical intelligence’. His poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion received particular critical acclaim, culminating in his being the first writer of colour to be awarded the Forward Prize. The chair of the judges Jeremy Paxman noted: ‘Many poets refer to multiple realities, different ways of observing the world. Kei doesn’t just refer, he articulates them’.

Yet, even alongside the acclaim for his poetic work, Kei Miller tends to see the essay as his primary literary form. Certainly, it is the means through which he thinks through his fascinations with language, meaning and the body. Miller’s recent essay In Praise of the Fat Black Woman & Volume is representative of the lyricism of his essay style, dramatizing many of the early poetic influences upon his work and intellectual life. The Jamaican performance poet Staceyann Chin is one such influence – a voluble, dynamic and driven figure. Though he is a soft-spoken and always reflective writer, Miller’s poetry is at the same time loud in its critique of British imperialism and cultural hubris, and equally of the Jamaican middle class. As in the linked interview, recorded at the 2019 ACLALS conference in Auckland, New Zealand, he observes that he doesn’t mind if his work is overheard by outsiders, but that he writes primarily for and about Jamaica. Miller juxtaposes characters and images in such a way that his poems flow like an ongoing conversation. We listen now to a single speaker musing to himself, now to a dialogue see-sawing between impassioned interlocutors. Miller is one of the most exciting voices on the British literary scene today whose work appeals and resonates across a wide range of audiences.

—Chelsea Haith, 2019

Cite this: Haith, Chelsea. “[scf-post-title].” Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds, 2019, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 9 February 2026.

The post Kei Miller appeared first on writers make worlds.