Remembering the Windrush Generation with Mel Pennant and Lisa Smith

Join novelists Mel Pennant (A Murder for Miss Hortense) and Lisa Smith (Jamaica Road) as they come together to discuss their lived experiences growing up in the tight-knit Caribbean communities of London in the 1970s and 1980s and how their memories shaped their writing and their books.

Mel Pennant is an award-winning playwright whose work has appeared in the National Archives, as well as on stage. Born in London, she was raised by an extraordinary village, which included her Jamaican grandparents who moved to England in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation. A Murder for Miss Hortense is Mel’s first novel and is a gripping new crime title, starring unforgettable Jamaican sleuth Miss Hortense. 

Lisa Smith is a writer from South London born to Caribbean parents. She won the Pat Kavanagh Prize in 2019, the 2017 Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize and in 2020 she was selected to join the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. Jamaica Road is her first novel. A transformative love story about two best friends who fall for each other, fall apart, and try to find their way back together in their tight-knit British-Jamaican community.