Roger Robinson

Roger Robinson FRSL is a British writer, musician and performer who lives between England and Trinidad. He is best known for A Portable Paradise, which won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019.

Early life Robinson was born in Hackney, London, to Trinidadian parents, and at the age of four went with them to live in Trinidad, returning to England when he was 19 in the 1980s, He initially lived with his grandmother in Ilford, Essex, before moving to Brixton. He describes himself as "a British resident with a Trini sensibility".

Spoken word, dub, music

From the early 1990s, Robinson has practised as a spoken-word performer in London. He has performed with the bands Techno Animal, Flytronix, The Bug, Attica Blues and Speeka. Robinson is the lead vocalist for the musical crossover project King Midas Sound. Their debut album Waiting for You was released on Hyperdub Records, and was named among the top 50 releases of 2009 in The Wire. His solo album of spoken folk, illclectica, was named by Mojo as one of the top 10 electronic albums of that year. In 2015 he released Dis Side Ah Town described as "an album that lyrically recalls the most incisive and suggestive lyricists in dub and roots reggae". Heaven's Lathe released Robinson's "Sound Man" as a single in 2024.

His one-man spoken-word shows The Shadow Boxer, Letter from My Father's Brother and Prohibition all premiered at the British Festival of Visual Theatre at Battersea Arts Centre. Robinson's commissions have included work for the Theatre Royal Stratford East, the National Trust, London Open House, the National Portrait Gallery, LIFT and the Tate.

A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press) won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019. Robinson's victory was further described as significant for small presses. A Portable Paradise went on to be the second book of poetry to win the Ondaatje Prize in May 2020.

Poetry community Until 2000, Robinson was programme co-ordinator of the performance poetry organisation Apples and Snakes. His workshops have been a part of a shortlist for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries and were also a part of the Barbican Centre's Can I Have A Word. He is a co-founder of London poetry collective Malika's Poetry Kitchen with fellow poets Malika Booker and Jacob-Sam La Rose.

Robinson was chosen by arts organisation Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced black-British writing over the past 50 years.