Ken Blakemore

Ken Blakemore grew up in northern England and now lives in Swansea. He first worked as a teacher in West Africa, where at one point he got mixed up in a military coup and had to escape across the border from Ghana to Burkina Faso. He has travelled extensively around Europe, Africa, India, the USA and Australia. After spells of casual work as a hotel night porter and in a slaughterhouse, a steam laundry and as a funeral director's assistant (his favourite), he finished a PhD on African education...See more

Ken Blakemore grew up in northern England and now lives in Swansea. He first worked as a teacher in West Africa, where at one point he got mixed up in a military coup and had to escape across the border from Ghana to Burkina Faso. He has travelled extensively around Europe, Africa, India, the USA and Australia. After spells of casual work as a hotel night porter and in a slaughterhouse, a steam laundry and as a funeral director's assistant (his favourite), he finished a PhD on African education and obtained a job as a university lecturer. He has worked in universities in the English Midlands and in Los Angeles, London and South Wales and has written a wide range of academic texts and articles, including a book on African-Caribbean and Asian migrants to the UK which won the Seebohm Book of the Year Trophy in 1995. In 2006 he obtained an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Swansea University and has been a full-time writer since 2007. His performed plays include Half Marx, Love Bytes and Human Studies (the latter a BBC Radio 4 production). He has also published poetry and a popular childhood memoir, Sunnyside Down. Prophecy of Ravens is his first novel. See less