Jackie Kay is a novelist, poet, and playwright. She grew up in Glasgow, born to a Scottish mother and Nigerian father, but was adopted as an infant by a white family. Growing up, she only knew one other Black person (her own brother), and she struggled with identity and coming out to her parents as a teenager in the 1970s. Her first novel, Trumpet, was published in 1998 and awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize. It was also shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has also published multiple collections of short stories and poems, as well as a memoir about reuniting with her biological father. In 2016, she was appointed the Scottish Makar, which is the Scottish equivalent of Poet Laureate.
On Trumpet: “Inspired by the life of musician Billy Tipton, the novel tells the story of Scottish jazz trumpeter Joss Moody, whose death revealed that he was, in fact, a woman. Kay develops the narrative through the voices of Moody’s wife, his adopted son and a journalist from a tabloid newspaper.”
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Credit: https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/jackie-kay
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/27/life-writing-jackie-kay
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