Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes was born in Ghana in 1962 and grew up in Jamaica. He has had more than twenty plays produced and published thirteen collections of poetry, a novel, a memoir, and a study of the lyrics of Bob Marley. His essays have appeared in Bomb, Essence, Granta, the London Review of Books, and World Literature Today. He is professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina, founder and executive director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, and the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, held in Jamaica each year. In 2004, he was awarded the Musgrave Silver Medal for outstanding services by a Jamaican in the Arts.