LKJ launches new book to showcase his life’s work

LONDON:

Jamaica-born poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, who is also a renowned reggae icon, academic and campaigner, has launched his fifth book, titled Time Come: Selected Prose, a collection of his writings over the years, including essays, book reviews, music critiques, lectures and obituaries.

Johnson, whose impact on the cultural landscape in over 40 years has been colossal and multigenerational, says the new book traces his development as a writer over the years.

Speaking at the launch event at the 198 Contemporary Art Gallery in Brixton, south London, earlier this month, Johnson, popularly known as LKJ, said: “The book will be dedicated to the heroic generation of Caribbean people, like my parents, who have laid the foundation that we could build on in the UK.”

A host of writers, musicians as well as community activists who have worked alongside LKJ over the years were in attendance. Johnson also had a busy evening signing books for persons who were eager to get their copy before it went on sale.

Born in Chapelton, Clarendon, Johnson, joined his parents in London in 1963 and settled in Brixton. It was while at school in Tulse Hill that he joined the British Black Panther movement and helped to organise a poetry workshop which started his activism work within the black community.

He studied sociology at Goldsmith College in London, graduating in 1973. Speaking about the start of his journey as a poet in a 2018 interview, he said: “I began to write verse, not only because I liked it, but because it was a way of expressing the anger, the passion of the youth of my generation in terms of our struggle against racial oppression. Poetry was a cultural weapon in the black liberation struggle, so that’s how it began.”

In 2020, he was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize, one of the most prestigious honours given by the charity English PEN, which defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature. The award was created in memory of Nobel Laureate playwright Harold Pinter. In accepting the award at the time, he said: “Awards are the nourishment of every artist’s ego. It is always nice to be acknowledged.”

Linton Kwesi Johnson has been frequently praised for his writings which clearly embody the power to enact change. Few modern-day figures have been as unwaveringly committed to political expression in their work as LKJ.

He has been fearless and relentless with his opinions through verse and his poetry is now more important than ever, given the ongoing demonisation of the immigrant population and the racial injustices that still prevail in the UK today.

Time Come: Selected Prose is published by Picador and is available for purchase on most online platforms.

Johnson is also in the line-up of authors for this year’s staging of the Calabash Literary festival in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, May 26 to 28.

He joins Olive Senior, Xavier Navarro Aquino, Padma Lakshmi, Jeremy Pointing, Ingrid Persaud, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Busby, Jonathan Escoffery, Nicole Krauss, Tom Zoellner and Namwali Serpell.