CLIC is pleased to invite you to a reading and discussion with award-winning writer Caryl Phillips (St Kitts / UK) on 6 May 2025, at 20:00, at Passa Porta in Brussels. Sign up here.
“I had a mind, and I could think. I sensed that I was different from other boys. I knew, for sure, that I was not going to emulate my father. Was it wrong to want to see the world?”
Caryl Phillips will read from his powerful new novel Another Man in the Street, which was released in January 2025. The story cuts to the heart of migration, belonging, and the messy, all-too-human choices that shape our lives. Set against the backdrop of the 1960s, this masterfully woven tale follows Victor, a Caribbean-born journalist chasing his dreams in England, only to find himself navigating unseen borders within borders. Through vivid characters and deeply human dilemmas, Phillips explores the ties that bind — and sometimes break — when people cross oceans, cities, and thresholds of the self.
About the book
It’s the sixties. Victor, a young man from the Caribbean and aspiring journalist, boards a ship to England. Victor’s migration is voluntary – driven by an urge to follow his vocation. And yet, in spite of his talents and efforts, he will soon encounter limitations instead of opportunities. He will also encounter others who have left their homes, or earlier lives, behind – in search of work, of opportunities, of change or as exiles or refugees. Though their decisions to move – to the city, across borders or even oceans – are inspired by different motivations, the impact of this decision on their lives, and on their dealings with others, weighs heavily. In the process, they change.
Today, as negative sentiments against migrants, spurred by toxic political narratives, are once more palpable, Phillips’s novel comes as timely reminder of the impact of each individual decision to leave a familiar place and sever ties – for those who leave as much as for those who are left behind. It draws attention to the fates of individuals, their unique dreams, disappointments and shortcomings, to their experiences of hostility and hospitality. Depicting his characters as neither saints nor heroes, Phillips places the sometimes ‘messy’ development of individuals centre stage. Their reasonings and their interactions are indeed all-too-human.
Masterfully captured, these thought-provoking portrayals of individual lives show once more what literature, and maybe literature alone, can achieve by tapping into the complexity and contradictions inherent in human lives.
About Caryl Phillips
Described as “one of Britain's pre-eminent writers” (Guardian) and “one of the literary giants of our time” (New York Times), Phillips is the acclaimed author of 17 books of prose (among them novels, works of biography, travelogues and literary essays) as well as numerous works for the stage, the screen and radio drama. His works have won numerous prizes. Praised by critics for his versatility of style and approach to character, Phillips’s prose is also singularly readable and captivating, in keeping with the urgency of the subject matter his oeuvre treats and the crucial and timely questions it raises. Phillips has taught at universities across the globe and has been a Professor of English at Yale for more than twenty years.
About the Moderator
Suzanne Scafe is a guest professor at the Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She specializes in Caribbean, Black British, and Postcolonial Literature. She is the co-author of the classic The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain; author of Teaching Black Literature, and author and editor of many publications on Caribbean and Black British literature and culture. Her book Reading to Resist: Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing will be published later this year by Routledge.
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The reading and discussion will be conducted in English. Questions can be taken in all languages habitually spoken in Belgium.
Books can be obtained at Passa Porta after the reading. Make sure that you receive your copy and preorder here: info@passaportabookshop.be | +32 02 502 94 60
Read a recent essay by Caryl Phillips on James Baldwin (Times Literary Supplement)
Read more about Caryl Phillips and his works here.
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This event is part of the Ties that Bind Us Series and realised in cooperation with Passa Porta: International House of Literature and Bookshop and the Brussels Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM).
Ties that Bind Us: Transcultural Perspectives on Social Forms
A cross-disciplinary series organised by the Faculty of Languages and Humanities for VUB’s Public Programme.
The impact of global and geopolitical crises on European societies is widely felt. Common reactions to these are a growing societal divide and a rise in anti-democratic positions. The public imaginary is rife with a rhetoric dominated by the erection of walls, the demarcation of territory and claims of ownership. Crushed between polarised camps are vulnerable members of our societies – and thus humanity itself. Individuals with their complex identities are categorised into groups whose belonging, right to existence even, is called into question. Understanding the realities of diversity and change as given, the series “Ties that Bind Us” seeks to create a platform for a wide range of perspectives, life experiences and cultures of knowledge about forms of kinship, solidarity and conviviality – or, in other words, a counter-imaginary space to an increasingly widespread, yet dangerously reductive binary thinking.
Contact: ties@vub.be
Organisers at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities:
- Prof. dr. Benoît Henriet, History
- Prof. dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker, English & Comparative Literature
- Prof. dr. Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans, Art History
Co-funded by the Faculty of Languages and Humanities research groups:
- Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC)
- Social History of Capitalism (SHOC)
- History of Art, Architecture & Visual Culture Research Group (VISU)
