Delia Jarrett-Macauley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Delia Jarrett-Macauley
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Hertfordshire, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Dee Jarrett-Macauley |
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Notable work
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| Awards | Orwell Prize |
Delia Jarrett-Macauley, also known as Dee Jarrett-Macauley, is a British writer, teacher, and broadcaster. She lives in London and has family roots in Sierra Leone. Her first novel, Moses, Citizen & Me, won the Orwell Prize in 2006. This was the first time a novel had ever won this important award for political writing.
Delia has created and presented shows for BBC Radio. She has also appeared on many other radio programmes. As a scholar, she has taught history, literature, and cultural studies at several universities. These include Leeds University, Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Warwick. She also works as a consultant for businesses and arts groups.
Contents
Growing Up and School
Delia Jarrett-Macauley was born in Hertfordshire, England. Her parents were from the Sierra Leone Creole community. She was their youngest daughter and visited Sierra Leone when she was a child.
She went to school at York College for Girls and Harrogate Grammar School. Later, she earned her first degree in management from London University. She also received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English from the same university.
Working in Arts and Education
Delia Jarrett-Macauley started working in the arts world in the mid-1980s. She was the Director of the Independent Theatre Council. She also advised Arts Council England, which supports arts and culture.
She helped manage a summer school for African dance. She also organized educational projects for African Players, a theatre group. In the 1990s, she co-led a project for the Royal National Theatre. This project looked at how arts can bring social change in Europe.
Delia has also been a judge for several awards. She served on the boards of many cultural and literary groups. For example, she was involved with the Caine Prize for African Writing. She chaired the judging panel for this prize in 2016.
Teaching at Universities
Her career as a university teacher began in 1989. She taught the first courses on black women's studies at the University of Kent. Based on this work, she edited a book in 1996 called Reconstructing Womanhood, Reconstructing Feminism: Writings on Black Women. This was the first British book of its kind to explore womanhood and feminism with a focus on "race" and ethnicity.
She also created and led a program on arts management at Birkbeck College, London. Delia has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics. She has taught many courses at universities like Kent, London, and Middlesex. She has also trained teachers at Goldsmiths College, London.
Delia has written for many academic magazines. These include Feminist Review and Women's History Review. She also contributed to the 2019 book New Daughters of Africa. In 2018, Delia was named one of the 100 most influential Black Britons on the Powerlist.
She also edited a book called Shakespeare, Race and Performance: The Diverse Bard in Contemporary Britain in 2016. This book included writings from many different experts.
In 2016, Delia was part of a group from the London Book Fair that visited China. She spoke at book fairs and events in Beijing and Shanghai. She was also filmed for a series by the British Council in Rome.
Her Books
Delia Jarrett-Macauley has written two important books. One is a biography called The Life of Una Marson, 1905–65, published in 1998. The other is her novel, Moses, Citizen & Me, published in 2005.
About The Life of Una Marson
This book is a well-liked biography of Una Marson. Una Marson was the first black programme-maker for the BBC. Many people praised the book. Chris Searle called it a "finely written, detailed, narrative." Margaret Busby described it as "compelling."
Other reviewers said it was "thoroughly researched" and "a work of sustained and original scholarship." They also called it "genuinely inspiring" and "a significant contribution to the work of historical memory."
About Moses, Citizen & Me
Delia Jarrett-Macauley's 2005 novel is about the Sierra Leone Civil War. It tells a story about the suffering of child soldiers and their families. The book was widely praised.
Aminatta Forna called it "A deeply affecting and vividly told story." Bernardine Evaristo said it was "a very serious and significant choice of subject matter for a debut novel." Francis Wheen described it as "An extraordinary novel about war, childhood, art and salvation."
Lucy Beresford noted how the "understated prose" worked well with the "bleak and disturbing subject matter." Ali Smith praised its "calm analysis" and its "keenness to promise hope and rehabilitation." Maya Jaggi called it a "delicate and brave" exploration of a "tormented generation."
Moses, Citizen & Me won the Orwell Prize in 2006. The judges said it was "a work of great intimacy and moral complexity." They felt it was the kind of book that "sheds light on a world we barely understand."
Working in Broadcasting
Delia Jarrett-Macauley has worked on many projects for BBC Radio. She created and presented The Una Marson Story for BBC Radio 3. She also presented Black Women Writers in 1930s England on BBC Radio 4.
In 2006, she made a Radio 4 show called Imaginary Homeland. For this show, she returned to Sierra Leone after 30 years. The programme mixed her memories and her fiction with the real efforts to rebuild Sierra Leone.
She has also contributed to other BBC shows like Woman's Hour and Open Book. She narrated Warrior Marks, a documentary film by Alice Walker. This film was shown on UK television.
In 2022, a TV documentary about Una Marson was broadcast on BBC Two. In this show, Delia Jarrett-Macauley asked, "How could we have let someone of Una Marson's calibre just disappear?"
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Delia Jarrett-Macauley
