Lisa Smith’s debut novel, Jamaica Road, is a story about two best friends who grow up, grow apart, and try to find their way back to each other. Set in a close-knit British-Jamaican community, the novel traces one couple’s connection across a decade of upheaval, from the streets of South London to the shores of Calabash Bay.
Smith holds an M.A. in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Pat Kavanagh Prize. She was the recipient of the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize for “Auld Lang Syne” and was named a London Library Emerging Writer in 2020.
We asked the author to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know her and the books that shaped her story.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Jamaica Road author Lisa Smith was guided by Annie John and Swing Time “