White Woman on the Green Bicycle (Roffey) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Porf of Spain, Trinidad
• Education—B.A., Univeristy of East Anglia; M.A., Ph.D,
   Lancaster University
• Currently—divides her time between London and Port of
   Spain

Monique Roffey is a Trinidadian-born British writer and memoirist.

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1965 to a British father and mother of mixed Mediterranean origins, Roffey was educated at St Andrew’s School in Maraval, Trinidad, and then in the UK at St Maur’s Convent, and St George's College, Weybridge. She studied English and Film Studies at the University of East Anglia and later completed an MA and PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. Between 2002-2006 she was a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation and later held three posts for the Royal Literary Fund (2006–12). Roffey has taught creative writing for English PEN, the Arvon Foundation, the Writers’ Lab, Skyros and on the MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.

She is a member of the action group CALAG (Caribbean Literature Action Group), launched in April 2012, a twenty-strong group of writers, publishers and literary activists committed to mentoring new talent and stimulating a literary publishing industry in the Caribbean region.

She has dual nationality and divides her time between London and Port of Spain.

Works
Roffey’s early body of work comprises three novels and a memoir. Sun Dog, set in west London, is a magical realist tale of psychological estrangement, identity loss and subsequent individuation. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (short-listed for the Orange Prize 2010 and the Encore Award 2011), is the story of European ex-colonials living in Trinidad during the island’s early Independence years and their subsequent process of creolisation. It was hailed by Commonwealth Prize-winner Olive Senior, who said: "...It breaks entirely new ground. It is a major contribution to the New Wave of Caribbean writing: energetic, uncompromising, bold in the choice of narrative devices and a great read.” It has been published to critical acclaim in the UK, USA and Europe.

Roffey's 2011 memoir, With the Kisses of His Mouth, is a personal account of a mid-life quest for sexual liberation and self-identification other than the aspirant hetero-normative model.

Archipelago, published in July 2012, written in the aftermath of a flood, examines climate change from the perspective of a man from the southern Caribbean. Andrew Miller, Costa Award Winner, 2012, said of it: "Archipelago is beautifully done. There's a warmth to it, an exuberance and a wisdom, that makes the experience of reading it feel not just pleasurable but somehow instructive. It's funny, sometimes bitingly poignant. And how well Roffey writes a male central character. A brilliant piece of storytelling.”

A writer of dual nationality and perspective, she writes about outsiders, be they the terminally awkward (August Chalmin), the left-behind Europeans in Trinidad (George and Sabine Harwood), or indeed herself. Stylistically, her work can be linked in terms of post-modern narrative choices, in that they often weave together magical realism, real-life historical characters and events, biography and autobiography to tackle themes of alienation and otherness. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)