Vahni Capildeo

Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers.

She has lived in the UK since 1991, where she has published four poetry collections including Undraining Sea (2009), Dark & Unaccustomed Words (2012) – longlisted for the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature – and, most recently, Utter (2013). She read English at Christ Church, Oxford and subsequently became a Rhodes Scholar there, studying Old Norse and translation theory, before undertaking a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge. It was there that she completed her first two books, No Traveller Returns (2003) and Person Animal Figure (2005). A long-time contributing editor to the Caribbean Review of Books, she is also contributing advisor to Black Box Manifold. In addition to poetry she also writes prose; excerpts from her book-length work One Skattered Skeleton have been published in various places, including Ian Sinclair’s London: City of Disappearances (2006). She is currently a Programme Officer at the Commonwealth Foundation.