The Writers of Wales Database

WHITE, LANDEG

Quinta Terra da Vela, Rua do Riguerinho 19, Carapinheira, 260–308 Mafra, Portugal
Tel: (00351) 21 9863062
Website: www.landegwhite.com
Email: landeg.white@clix.pt

Landeg White was born in Taffs Well. He taught at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad, where he was chief arranger for a steel band; in the University of Malawi, from where he was deported in 1972; in the University of Sierra Leone, where he wrote the novel Inspector Tucker & the Leopard Man, and in the University of Zambia, where he was teaching when his first book V.S.Naipaul: A Critical Introduction (Macmillan, 1975) was published. He taught at the University of York where he joined the Centre for Southern African Studies, becoming Director in 1984. Here he wrote two Mozambican histories, the history of a village in Malawi, a study of southern African praise poetry, an anthology of African oral poetry (co-authored with Jack Mapanje) and three collections of his own poetry. 

Since 1994 he has taught at the Universidade Aberta (Open University) in Lisbon. His translation of Camões The Lusíads won the Texeira Gomes prize for 1998, and he has published a further five poetry collections. Landeg is currently writing a biography of John Gabriel Stedman and recently published The Collected Lyrics of Luis de Cameos (Princeton University Press, 2008) and the novel Livingstone Funeral (Cinnamon, 2010). Landeg is a Member of Academi.

Reviews:
With respect to Singing Bass (Parthian, 2009)

"…The poems are unflaggingly good, with an audenesque ease of utterance overlaying anger, and a sensual vividness that has one wiping the dust from the eyes…"
The Observer

"…accessible…evocative of place…"
Times Literary Supplement

"…White addresses fundamental issues unflinchingly…"
The Big Issue

"…a talent for vivid description…compelling in its evocation…"
Carrie Etter, New Welsh Review


With respect to Livingstone Funeral (Cinnamon, 2010)

"…The novel is a rich, informative, sometimes alarming and often moving account... generous and perceptive...post-post-colonial in the ironies and sympathies it has available for almost all its characters. A novel of confidence and subtlety..."
Stephen Knight

"...Original, subtle, inventive. Livingstone's Funeral has huge potential to become the best seller in its genre..."
Jack Mapanje


Selected Publications
V.S.Naipaul: A Critical Introduction (Macmillan, 1975)
For Captain Stedman (Peterloo Poets, 1983)
Magomero: Portrait of an African Village (Cambridge University Press 1987 & 1989)
View from the Stockade (Dangaroo Press, 1991)
Bounty (Dangaroo Press, 1993)
Bridging the Zambezi: A Colonial Folly (Palgrave Macmillan, 1993) 
Where The Angolans Are Playing Football: Selected and New Poetry (Parthian, 2003)
Arab Work (Parthian, 2006)
Singing Bass (Parthian, 2009)
Livingstone Funeral (Cinnamon, 2010)

Contributed to:
Literature and Society in South Africa (Longman Studies in African Literature) (with Tim Couzens) (Longman International Education, 1985)
After Apartheid: Renewal of the South African Economy 
(editor with John Suckling) (Africa World Press, 1988)
The Lusaids by Luis de Camoes (editor and translator) (Oxford Paperbacks, 1998)
The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) (translator) (Princeton University Press, 2008)

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Readings from/ discussion of own poetry
2. Travel and translation

AGE RANGE: older secondary school, university, adults
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: help with travel expenses