Oonya Kempadoo is a writer who was born in Sussex, England, in 1966 of Guyanese parents. She was brought up in Guyana and has studied art in Amsterdam. She has also lived in Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Tobago, and now lives in Grenada.
Her first novel, Buxton Spice, was published to great acclaim in 1998, and was nominated for the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second book, Tide Running (Picador, 2001), set in Plymouth, Tobago, is the story of young brothers Cliff and Ossie.
She was named a Great Talent for the Twenty-First Century by the Orange Prize judges and is a winner of the Casa de las Américas Prize.