OLIVE SENIOR, born in 1941 in Jamaica, is an award-winning poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer. On March 17, 2021, she was invested with the honor of becoming Jamaica's third Poet Laureate for 2021-2024. The seventh of ten children born to peasant farmers, the young Olive grew up in the wild mountainous landscape in the interior of Jamaica. As a child, she found a new, though solitary, life in living with a wealthier and cosmopolitan great uncle and great aunt.
After winning a scholarship to the prestigious Montego Bay High School for Girls, Olive Senior began her writing career at nineteen years old at The Daily Gleaner, Jamaica's major newspaper in Kingston. She soon won a scholarship to study journalism at the Thomson Foundation in Cardiff, Wales. Later, she furthered her studies at the Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. While at university, she began writing fiction and poetry.
On her return to Jamaica, Senior worked as a freelancer in public relations, publishing, and speech writing before joining the Institute of Economic Research at the University of the West Indies. In 1982, she joined the Institute of Jamaica as editor of the Jamaica Journal, a magazine that promotes the history and culture of the Caribbean Island nation.
Senior left Jamaica in 1989, spent some years in Europe, and since 1993 has been based in Toronto, Canada. She returns frequently to the Caribbean which remains central to her work.
Olive Senior's five books of poetry include: ~Talking to Trees (1985) ~Gardening in the Tropics (1994), received the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize 1995 ~Over the Roofs of the World (2005), shortlisted for Canada's Governor-General Literary Award for Poetry ~Shell (2007), shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award and ~Pandemic Poems: First Wave (2021).
Olive Senior's selected Awards and Honors include: ~The Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Summer Lightning and Other Stories (1987) ~Norman Washington Manley Foundation Award for Excellence in preserving Jamaican cultural heritage (2003) ~Musgrave Gold Medal from the Institute of Jamaica for her contribution to literature (2004) ~OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, winner of non-fiction category (2015) ~OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, winner of fiction category and overall winner (2016) ~Honorary Doctorate in Literature from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica (2017) and ~Writers Trust of Canada Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement (2019).
Photo published on the Poet's Website at olivesenior.com
