Self-Portrait as Othello

Summary

Placing the Black male body within the landscapes of Europe and the cultural legacy of Shakespeare, this collection uses Othello as a lens through which to examine belonging, visibility, and the weight of post-colonial identity as it is lived in the present moment. Allen-Paisant writes with a rare combination of intellectual rigour and sensory immediacy, and his poems find new ways to articulate experiences that occupy the intersection of race, beauty, and cultural inheritance. The book was widely praised for its originality and its refusal of familiar frames.