{{short description|Jamaican-British author (born 1958)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{Infobox person | name = Joan Riley | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date and age text|26 May 1958}} | birth_place = Hopewell, Richmond, St. Mary, Jamaica | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = Writer | alma_mater = University of Sussex;<br />University of London | known for = | notable_works = ''The Unbelonging''<br />''A Kindness to the Children'' | spouse = | children = | relatives = }}

'''Joan Riley''' (born 26 May 1958)<ref name=Orlando>[http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=rilejo Joan Riley overview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719143247/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople%3Fperson_id%3Drilejo |date=19 July 2019 }}, Orlando.</ref> is a Jamaican-British writer. Her 1985 debut novel ''The Unbelonging'' made her "the first Afro-Caribbean woman author to write about the experiences of Blacks in England".<ref>Wendy Rountree, [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3792 "Joan Riley"], ''The Literary Encyclopedia'', 8 February 2005.</ref>

==Biography== Joan Riley was born in Hopewell, Richmond, St. Mary, Jamaica, the youngest of eight children (six girls and two boys),<ref name=Orlando /><ref name=Mordecai>[https://books.google.com/books?id=syil2lMK02sC&dq=%22joan+riley%22&pg=PA66 "Joan Riley"], in Pamela Mordecai (ed.), ''Her True-True Name'', Heinemann, 1989, p. 66.</ref> and was raised by her father after her mother died in childbirth.<ref name=Nasta>[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCgR3ueg52UC&dq=%22joan+riley%22&pg=PA93 "Joan Riley with Aamer Hussein"], in Susheila Nasta (ed.), ''Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk'', Routledge, 2004, p. 93.</ref> She received her early education on that island before migrating in 1976 to the United Kingdom.<ref name=mohit_ray2007/> There she studied social work at the University of Sussex and the University of London.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} She has worked at a drugs advisory agency and wrote about the experiences of Caribbean women.

Riley is the author of four novels; her first, ''The Unbelonging'', published in 1985, is considered the first by a woman about the black experience in Britain. Riley was awarded the ''Voice'' award for her work in 1992, and the MIND prize in 1993 for ''A Kindness to the Children''.<ref name=Nasta />

She has been featured in such anthologies as ''Daughters of Africa'' (edited by Margaret Busby, 1992)<ref>Margaret Busby (ed.), ''Daughters of Africa'', London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, pp. 909–14.</ref> and ''Her True-True Name'' (edited by Pamela Mordecai, 1989).<ref name=Mordecai /> Riley co-edited with Briar Wood ''Leave to Stay: Stories of Exile and Belonging'' (Virago, 1996), a collection of fiction and poetry by writers from India, the Caribbean, China, South Africa, the USSR, Canada, Australia and Pakistan, including Sujata Bhatt, Fred D'Aguiar, Michael Donaghy, Jane Duran, Michael Hoffman, Aamer Hussein, Mimi Khalvati, Adam Lively, Sindiwe Magona, Bharati Mukherjee, Hanan al-Shaykh, Janice Shinebourne and Zinovy Zinik.

==Bibliography== '''Novels''' * ''The Unbelonging'' (London: The Women's Press, 1985) * ''Waiting in the Twilight'' (London: The Women's Press, 1987) * ''Romance'' (London: The Women's Press, 1988; new edition 1997) * ''A Kindness to the Children'' (London: The Women's Press, 1992)

== Further reading == * Beyer, Charlotte. "Representations of Ageing and Black British Identity in Andrea Levy's ''Every Light in the House Burnin''' and Joan Riley's ''Waiting in the Twilight''". ''Andrea Levy'', spec. issue of ''Entertext'' 9, 2012, pp.&nbsp;105–121. * Corhay-Ledent, Bénédicte. “Between Conflicting Worlds: Female Exiles in Jean Rhys's ''Voyage in the Dark'' and Joan Riley's ''The Unbelonging''", ''Crisis and Creativity in the New Literatures in English'', edited by Geoffry Davis, Rodopi, 1990, pp.&nbsp;499–510. * Ellis, David, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CR9kbARvfYsC&dq=%22joan+riley%22&pg=PA68 "'Wives and Workers': The Novels of Joan Riley"], in Emma Parker (ed.), ''Contemporary British Women Writers, Volume 57'', Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004, pp.&nbsp;68–84. * Fischer, Susan Alice. "Women Writers, Global Migration, and the City: Joan Riley's ''Waiting in the Twilight'' and Hanan Al-Shaykh's ''Only in London''", ''Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature'', vol. 23, no. 1, 2004, 107–120. * Hong, Fang, [http://en.genderstudy.cn/html/scholar/5160-0.htm "Joan Riley and the Unbelonging Black Migrant Woman"]{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Institute of Foreign Languages, Soochow University, Foreign Literature 2008-5. * [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02690059308574300?journalCode=rwas20 "Joan Riley talks with Aamer Hussein"], ''Wasafiri'', 8:17, 1993, 17–19, DOI: 10.1080/02690059308574300.

==References== {{Reflist|30em|refs=

<ref name=mohit_ray2007>{{cite book |author1=Mohit, Ed. |author2=K. Ray | year=2007 | title=The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English | page=448 | publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Distributors | isbn=978-81-269-0832-5 }}</ref>

}}

==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/373547.Joan_Riley Goodreads page] * [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw56302/Joan-Riley Joan Riley by Donald MacLellan], National Portrait Gallery, London * [https://www.vub.be/TALK/BBWW/index.php?id=44 "Joan Riley"], Black British Women Writers.

<!-- <ref name=cbww57_68>{{cite journal | first=David | last=Ellis | title='Wives and Workers': The Novels of Joan Riley | journal=Contemporary British Women Writers | page=68 | volume=57 | series=Essays and studies | editors=Emma Parker | publisher=DS Brewer | year=2004 | isbn=1-84384-011-1 }}</ref> -->

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Riley, Joan}} Category:1958 births Category:20th-century English novelists Category:20th-century Jamaican novelists Category:Alumni of the University of London Category:Alumni of the University of Sussex Category:Black British women writers Category:Black British writers Category:Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Jamaican women novelists Category:Living people Category:People from Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica Category:Women anthologists Category:20th-century English women novelists