Grace Nichols author page

Grace Nichols biography

Grace Nichols is a poet and children’s writer born in Georgetown, Guyana. She moved to England in 1977 and has written books for both children and adults.

Nichols’s first poetry collection, I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, was published in 1983 and won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her other poetry collections include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman, Sunris, Everybody Got A Gift, Startling the Flying Fish, Picasso, I Want My Face Back and I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems.

Nichols has written for young readers as well as adults, with children’s books drawing on Guyanese folklore and Amerindian legends. Her novel Whole of a Morning Sky is set in 1960s Guyana during the country’s struggle for independence.

Nichols was poet-in-residence at the Tate Gallery, London, in 1999–2000. Her poetry has been included on the UK national curriculum, and she was announced as winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry on 10 December 2021.