Thomas Glave’s En Pointe, Off Kilter (Jacaranda, March 2027) gathers essays on race and racism, Jamaica and Jamaican queer realities and recent history, British colonialism, trans-Atlantic slavery, writing and activism, dance, and more. The author will discuss some of the themes he addresses in the forthcoming book at the Birmingham Literature Festival (BLF), which runs from October 8 through 12, 2026 (plus Readers’ Day on October 24). On Sunday, October 11, at 4:00pm, he will be in conversation with BLF festival director Shantel Edwards at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire: The Jazz Club, Birmingham, UK. [See author’s bio and book description below.]
Description: This new collection of twenty-three (23) essays builds on the geopolitical, global, literary and personal themes in Glave’s two earlier nonfiction collections and in his fiction, expanding into reflections on race and racism, Jamaica and Jamaican queer realities and recent history, British colonialism, trans-Atlantic slavery, grief, the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, torture, sexual assault, writing in relation to activism, writers Nadine Gordimer and Stuart Hall, and more.
The essays and meditations foreground lyrical, evocative language in combination with compelling explorations of human rights, history, social justice, activism, literature, and the African diaspora.
Thomas Glave is the author of four books and the editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles. A two-time Fulbright Scholar and two-time Lambda Literary Award winner, he is an honorary visiting professor at the University of Liverpool and has been the Martin Luther King Jr Visiting Professorship at MIT and a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick. Glave serves on the editorial board of Wasafiri and is a trustee of Writing West Midlands and Peepal Tree Press.
For more on the conference, see https://www.ticketsource.com/bhamlitfest
For more on the presentation, see https://www.ticketsource.com/bhamlitfest/en-pointe-off-kilter-with-thomas-glave/2026-10-11/d-wwboqrsmzvgkw
For more information on the book, visit https://jacarandabooks.co.uk/products/en-pointe-off-kilter?srsltid=AfmBOorxZ2nLsSZHmDdK54ofrk-OjRvl08Fmm90UD59g65cPYYPL_yyg