Poet Roger Robinson won the £10,000 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize – for fiction, poetry or non-fiction which evokes the spirit of a place.
Judge Pascale Petit said ‘The spirit of place in this outstanding collection is the portable paradise of Trinidad in London. Roger Robinson’s profoundly moving book manages to balance anger and love, rage and craft. Every poem surprises with its imagery, emotional intensity and lyric power, whether dealing with Grenfell, Windrush, or a son’s difficult birth, which is also a tribute to a Jamaican nurse. This is a healing book, enabling us to conjure our own portable paradises.’