Pauline Melville

Pauline Melville (Born 1948) is a Guyanese-born writer and actress. Her mother was English, and her father Guyanese. Her first book, Shape-Shifter (1990), a collection of short stories, won the 1991 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book), and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

The book consists of a number of short stories dealing with post-colonial life in the Caribbean, particularly in her native Guyana, as well as of some stories set in London. Many of her characters, most of them displaced people from former colonies struggling to come to terms with a new life in Britain, attempt to find an identity, to reconcile their past and to escape from the restlessness hinted at in the title. Salman Rushdie said it was "notably sharp, funny, original...part Caribbean magic, part London grime, written in a slippery, chameleon language that is a frequent delight".

Her first novel, The Ventriloquist's Tale (1997), won the Whitbread First Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. In it she explores the nature of fiction and storytelling and writes about the impact of European colonisers on Guyanese Amerindians through the story of a brother and sister.

Her most recent collection of stories is The Migration of Ghosts (1998), a book of complex layered tales of physical and emotional displacement.

She appeared in films such as Mona Lisa (playing the part of Dawn), as Dora in The Long Good Friday, among others. She also appeared in television programmes: as Vyvyans's mother in the BBC Television comedy series The Young Ones; as Yvonne in Girls On Top, among others.

She now lives in London.

Bibliography

• Shape-Shifter, Women's Press, 1990, ISBN 9780704350519; Pantheon Books, 1991, ISBN 9780679404385
• The Ventriloquist's Tale Bloomsbury, 1997, ISBN 9780747531500; Bloomsbury USA, 1999, ISBN 9781582340265
• The Migration of Ghosts. Bloomsbury. 1998. ISBN 9780747536758. http://books.google.com/books?id=czl7xYZ53zQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pauline+melville&hl=en&ei=gervTea0NMX1gAfVlNiVDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. ; Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2000, ISBN 9781582340746
• Eating Air, Telegram, 2009, ISBN 9781846590764

Prizes and awards

• 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book) Shape-Shifter
• 1990 Guardian Fiction Prize Shape-Shifter
• 1991 PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award Shape-Shifter
• 1997 Whitbread First Novel Award The Ventriloquist's Tale
• 1998 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Ventriloquist's Tale

Films

• Ulysses (1967)
• Far from the Madding Crowd, (1967) as "Mrs. Tall"
• The Long Good Friday, (1980) as "Dora"
• Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights, (1981) as herself
• Britannia Hospital, (1982) as "Clarissa"
• Scrubbers, (1983) as "Crow"
• White City, (1985) as "Woman in dole office"
• Mona Lisa, (1986) as "Dawn"
• How to Get Ahead in Advertising, (1989) as "Mrs. Wailace"
• The House of Bernarda Alba, (1991)(TV) as "Prudencia"
• Utz, (1992) as "a Curator"
• Shadowlands, (1993) as a "Committee Chairwoman"

Television

• The Young Ones (1982), as "Vyyvan's mum" (in episodes "Sick" and "Boring") and "Woman on Bus" (in "Demolition")
• Girls On Top (1985) playing "Yvonne" (three episodes)
• Happy Families (1985) playing "Warder"
• Blackadder's Christmas Carol, (1988) as "Mrs. Scratchit"
• The Comic Strip Presents, (1988) as "Pauline Sneak" in episode "Didn't You Kill My Brother?"
• Alexei Sayle's Stuff (1988)
• Red Dwarf (1989) as "Barmaid" (uncredited)
• Alas Smith and Jones (1990) (two episodes)
• 2 Point 4 Children (1992) playing "Babs"
• Spender (1993) as "Judge"

External links

• Pauline Melville at the Internet Movie Database
• Pauline Melville, internationales literaturfestival berlin
• "Return and Leave and Return Again", Anthurian, Jordan Stouck
• "Pauline Melville". The Guardian. 2 January 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/02/pauline-melville-interview. 
• The literary talents of Pauline Melville, Stabroek News, November 30, 2010
• "One Minute With: Pauline Melville", The Independent, Boyd Tonkin, 4 September 2009