Jackie Kay

Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father. She was subsequently adopted by a white couple from Glasgow and grew up there. Her adoptive parents, with whom she remains very close, were Communists and often took the children to anti-apartheid protests and peace rallies.

After school Jackie attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she took acting classes with the hope of becoming an actress. However, when some of her poems made it to the writer Alasdair Gray, he suggested that she had the talent to write and Kay enrolled in Stirling University, where she read English.

Jackie is a renowned poet, playwright and author, who was first published in 1991, with her collection of poetry, The Adoption Papers. This book reflected her own experiences as a black child being raised by a white family.

The Adoption Papers won the Scottish Arts council Book Award, the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award and a commendation by the Forward Poetry Prize judges in 1992. The collection was also broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1990.

Her first novel, Trumpet, was published in 1998 and was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize. It was also shortlisted for the international IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The book is based on the life of the jazz musician Billy Tipton, who had fooled five wives and many band members into believing him to be a man. In fact Dorothy Tipton decided to dress like a man in 1933 and wasn’t discovered until medical intervention revealed the truth on his deathbed. Jackie has also written an account of the life of jazz singer Bessie Smith.

In 2002 Jackie published a collection of short stories, Why Don’t You stop Talking, and her first children’s book, Strawgirl.  She has also written a memoir Red Dust Road. She was named Scotland’s Makar in 2016 and worked in this role until 2021. She was also the Chancellor of the University of Salford from 2015 – 2022.

In September 2024, it was announced that the National Library of Scotland had acquired Kay’s literary archive.

She has one son, born in 1988, and lives in Manchester.