Another Man in the Street
novel · First published 2025
"Caryl Phillips, "seen by many as the father of Afro-British fiction" (The New York Times), gives us a hypnotic, heartbreaking novel lit by the bright and changing lights of 1960s London"--
Author guide
Caryl Phillips Books in Order
Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, came to Britain as an infant, grew up in Leeds, and studied English literature at Oxford University. He is the author of novels, essay collections, hybrid nonfiction, stage plays, screenplays, and radio drama. His writing frequently examines migration, slavery, colonialism, race, exile, identity, and belonging across the Caribbean, Britain, Africa, Europe, and the United States. His major honors include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and the PEN/Open Book Award. He is Professor of English at Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
novelsnonfictionessaysplaysradio dramascreenplays
Catalog record updated .
Caryl Phillips's Newest Book
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
The Final Passage
The debut novel and natural chronological entry point.
Crossing the River
A landmark novel that brings together Phillips's recurring concerns with slavery, diaspora, memory, and belonging.
The European Tribe
A concise entry into his essayistic nonfiction and reflections on race, culture, and Europe.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (14)
- The Final Passage
novel · 1985
As nineteen-year-old Leila surveys her island home from the ship that will carry her, her husband, and baby to England, she contemplates the Caribbean life of the 1950s that is chaotic, hand-to-mouth, and offers no way but out.
- A State of Independence
novel · 1986
Following a twenty-year sojourn to England, Bertram Francis returns to his native St. Kitts, a tiny West Indies island celebrating it liberation from British rule, and encounters resentment from his family and friends
- Higher Ground: A Novel in Three Parts
novel · 1989
- Cambridge
novel · 1991
Dramatic and challenging novel about freedom and prejudice by one of the most important authors of his generationCambridge is a powerful and haunting novel set in that uneasy time between the abolition of the slave trade and the…
- Crossing the River
novel · 1993
From the acclaimed author of Cambridge comes an ambitious, formally inventive, and intensely moving evocation of the scattered offspring of Africa. It begins in a year of failing crops and desperate foolishness, which forces a father to…
- The Nature of Blood
novel · 1997
A novel about personal crisis and momentous social conflict, Caryl Phillips sixth novel tells the inextricably linked stories of a young Jewish woman growing up in mid-twentieth-century Germany, and an African general hired by the Doge to…
- The Atlantic Sound
nonfiction · 2000
Liverpool, England; Accra, Ghana; Charleston, South Carolina. These were the points of the triangle forming the major route of the transatlantic slave trade. And these are the cities that acclaimed author Caryl Phillips…
- A Distant Shore
novel · 2003
Dorothy is a retired schoolteacher who has recently moved to a housing estate in a small village. Solomon is a night-watchman, an immigrant from an unnamed country in Africa. Each is desperate for love. And yet each harbors secrets that…
- Dancing in the Dark
novel · 2005
- Foreigners: Three English Lives
hybrid-nonfiction · 2007
- In the Falling Snow
novel · 2009
From one of our most admired fiction writers: the searing story of breakdown and recovery in the life of one man and of a society moving from one idea of itself to another.Keith--born in England in the early 1960s to immigrant West Indian…
- The Lost Child
novel · 2015
A reimagining of Wuthering Heights traces the multigenerational forces that shape the lives of a young Heathcliff, the Brontë sisters and their brother.
- A View of the Empire at Sunset
novel · 2018
"Caryl Phillips's A View of the Empire at Sunset is the sweeping story of the life of the woman who became known to the world as Jean Rhys. Born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams in Dominica at the height of the British Empire, Rhys lived in…
- Another Man in the Street
novel · 2025
"Caryl Phillips, "seen by many as the father of Afro-British fiction" (The New York Times), gives us a hypnotic, heartbreaking novel lit by the bright and changing lights of 1960s London"--
Essays and speeches (3)
- The European Tribe
essay-collection · 1987
- A New World Order: Selected Essays
essay-collection · 2001
- Colour Me English
essay-collection · 2011
Plays (7)
- Strange Fruit
play · 1981
- Where There is Darkness
play · 1982
- The Shelter
play · 1984
- Playing Away
screenplay · 1987
- The Mystic Masseur: Essays and Excerpts from the Screenplay
screenplay · 2001
- Rough Crossings
play · 2007
In response to a declaration by the last royal governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves--Americans who clung to the sentimental notion of British…
- Radio Plays
radio-play-collection · 2023
Frequently asked questions about Caryl Phillips
What is Caryl Phillips known for?
Caryl Phillips is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter whose work examines migration, race, empire, slavery, and belonging. He is also a major literary voice of the African diaspora.
Sources: carylphillips.com (opens in a new tab)news.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)
Where was Caryl Phillips born and raised?
He was born in St. Kitts and came to Britain as an infant. He grew up in Leeds and studied English literature at Oxford University.
Sources: carylphillips.com (opens in a new tab)english.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)
How does Caryl Phillips’s background influence his writing?
His Caribbean origins and experience of growing up in Britain inform his sustained interest in displacement, cultural identity, and belonging. His writing also explores the enduring effects of the African slave trade and the wider African diaspora.
Sources: carylphillips.com (opens in a new tab)news.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)
What awards has Caryl Phillips won?
His honors include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the PEN/Open Book Award. He has also received the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence.
Sources: carylphillips.com (opens in a new tab)english.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)
Why is Caryl Phillips important in contemporary literature?
Phillips is recognized for bringing the histories of migration, slavery, colonialism, and the African diaspora into innovative literary forms. His work has helped connect Caribbean, British, African, European, and American experiences of identity and displacement.
Sources: news.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)lannan.org (opens in a new tab)