Jackie Kay's work is an exploration of the intricate and complex identity. Often at the center of her narratives there is a subject that cannot be defined according to individual categories of citizenship, nationality or race. Moreover,...
moreJackie Kay's work is an exploration of the intricate and complex identity. Often at the center of her narratives there is a subject that cannot be defined according to individual categories of citizenship, nationality or race. Moreover, the identity of Kay, as it emerges from her works avowedly autobiographical (the poetry collection The Adoption Papers and the story Red Dust Road) is not easy to catalogy: her origin is Afro-Scottish (she was born in Edinburgh in 1961 from a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father), and has grown in a traditional social environment (Glasgow) by parents that were not traditional (she was adopted by a white couple, pacifist and radical communist). Similarly, it is difficult to categorize the genre and style of Jackie Kay’s texts. She is the author of poems but also of novels, short stories, plays, radio plays and children's books. In different forms and genres, Jackie Kay gives voice to women who, through words and storytelling, struggle in order to not "disappear / in a dim light" and to escape a destiny of anonymity, silence and alienation.
Key words: Jackie Kay, identity, autobiography, citizenship, nationality, race
