Victor Headley
{{short description|Jamaican-born British author (born 1959)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
Victor Headley (born 1959) is a Jamaican-born British author. He is the author of the bestselling novel Yardie (1992), which gained cult status upon publication and "heralded a new wave of black British pulp fiction".{{cite book|title=Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture|editor-first=Alison |editor-last=Donnell|editor-link=Alison Donnell|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0415862509|page=139|oclc=827972952 |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/827972952|access-date=28 October 2017|language=en}} Other books by Headley include Excess (1993) Yush (1994), Fetish (1995), Here Comes the Bride (1997), Off Duty (2001) and Seven Seals (2003).
Biography
Born in Jamaica, Headley came to live in London at the age of 12Kieran Meeke, [http://metro.co.uk/2009/10/27/victor-headley-636297/ "Victor Headley" (interview)], Metro, 27 October 2009. and after leaving school had a variety of jobs, from market stallholder to songwriter/band member, journalist to hospital courier. Headley's attempts to write a screenplay became his first novel, Yardie, which describes the life of a Jamaican courier carrying cocaine from Jamaica to London. The book helped to launch X Press, a black-owned publishing company co-founded in 1992 by Dotun Adebayo and Steve Pope.{{cite book|title=Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture|date=2013|page=248|oclc=827972952 |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/827972952|access-date=28 October 2017|language=en}} Headley has sold more than half a million copies across five titles, in five languages worldwide.
Headley's Yardie has been adapted as a feature film of the same name, released in 2018. In 2017, actor Idris Elba announced the book as the vehicle for his directorial debut, with Aml Ameen starring as the main character "D".{{cite web|last1=Mitchell|first1=Robert|title=Idris Elba Begins Production on Directorial Debut 'Yardie'|url=https://variety.com/2017/film/global/idris-elba-begins-production-on-directorial-debut-yardie-1202428368/|website=Variety|access-date=28 October 2017|date=16 May 2017}} Also starring are British actors Mark Smith and Naomi Ackie.{{cite web|title=Naomi Ackie: 'I tried not to freak out when I auditioned for Idris'|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/naomi-ackie-admits-she-tried-not-to-freak-out-when-she-auditioned-for-idris-elba-a3611266.html|website=Evening Standard|access-date=28 October 2017}}
Other sources
- Dyer, Rebecca (2004). Generations of Black Londoners: Echoes of 1950's Caribbean Migrants' Voices in Victor Headley's Yardie and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora, 5(2), 81–102.{{cite web|last1=Dyer|first1=Rebecca|title=Generations of Black Londoners: Echoes of 1950s Caribbean Migrants' Voices in Victor Headley's Yardie and Zadie Smith's White Teeth|url=https://www.academia.edu/984898|website=Obsidian III|access-date=28 October 2017|language=en}}
- Farred, Grant (Winter 2001). "The Postcolonial Chickens Come Home to Roost: How Yardie Has Created a New Postcolonial Subaltern", The South Atlantic Quarterly 100.1 (2001), 287–305.{{cite journal|last1=Farred|first1=Grant|title=The Postcolonial Chickens Come Home to Roost: How Yardie Has Created a New Postcolonial Subaltern|journal=The South Atlantic Quarterly|date=1 January 2001|volume=100|issue=1|pages=287–305|doi=10.1215/00382876-100-1-287 |s2cid=144085875 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/30692|access-date=28 October 2017|issn=1527-8026|url-access=subscription}}
- Howe, Darcus. "The Yardie Has Been Invented by White Journalists", New Statesman (2 August 1999).{{cite web|title=The Yardie has been invented by white journalists|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/node/149614|first=Darcus|last=Howe|website=www.newstatesman.com|date=2 August 1999|access-date=28 October 2017|language=en}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://www.westminster.gov.uk/libraries/reading/blackwriting/ Black writing Introduction]
- [http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/l.j.hurst/vh_sevens.htm SEVEN SEALS by Victor Headley review]
- [https://www.victorheadley.com/ Victor Headley Homepage]
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Category:Black British writers
Category:British crime fiction writers
Category:20th-century British novelists
Category:21st-century British novelists
Category:British male novelists
Category:Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom