Winsome Pinnock


Winsome Pinnock FRSL is a British playwright of Jamaican heritage, who is "probably Britain's most well known black female playwright". She was described in The Guardian as "the godmother of black British playwrights".

Life

Winsome Pinnock was born in Islington, North London, to parents who were both migrants from Smithville, Jamaica. Her mother was a cleaner, and her father a checker at Smithfield Meat Market. Pinnock attended Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Comprehensive Girls' School in Islington, and graduated from Goldsmiths' College, University of London with a BA degree in English and Drama, and in 1983 from Birkbeck College, University of London, with an MA degree in Modern Literature in English.
Pinnock's award-winning plays include The Winds of Change, Leave Taking, Picture Palace, A Hero's Welcome, A Rock in Water, Talking in Tongues, Mules and One Under. She also adapted Jean Rhys' short story "Let Them Call It Jazz" for BBC Radio 4 in 1998, and has written screenplays and television episodes. Pinnock's work is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
Pinnock has been Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. She lectures at Kingston University, London. In 2020, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
In 2022, Pinnock was the recipient of a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for drama.

Awards

Selected works