Monique Roffey

Monique Roffey is an award-winning writer. Born in Trinidad, she has written a trilogy of novels, which engage with the political and environmental issues of Trinidad and the Caribbean region. Her latest novel is House of Ashes and is set on the fictional island of Sans Amen. A story about a botched coup d’état, it explores a six-day siege from the point of view of a gunman, a hostage and a boy soldier.

The second novel of the trilogy, Archipelago, won the OCM Bocas prize for Caribbean literature in 2013. Written in response to a family disaster after her brother’s home was flooded in 2008, this novel examines climate change from the perspective of a man from the Caribbean. Gavin Weald and his six-year-old daughter Ocean go sailing from Trinidad to the Galapagos to discover on their sea voyage a new perspective about their own archipelago. Her novel The White Woman on the Green Bicycle was shortlisted for the Orange prize in 2010 and for the Encore award in 2011. It has received widespread critical acclaim. Her memoir With the Kisses of his Mouth caused controversy and acclaim in 2011.

Roffey divides her time between east London and Port of Spain, where she runs workshops and residential retreats. Roffey is a literary activist and member of Carib-Lit, and founder of the Carib-Lit residential writing retreats in Grand Riviere, Trinidad. She also teaches for the Arvon Foundation and Skyros Writer’s Lab. She was a centre director for Arvon from 2002 until 2006.