Elly Niland


Elly Niland is a Guyanese-born poet, playwright and teacher.
Her first collection of poetry was nominated for Best First Book of Poetry and was runner up for the Guyana Prize for Literature 2004. Her second collection Cornerstones won the Guyana Prize for Literature 2006. Her third collection, East of Centre, was funded by the British Arts Council and launched with several of the regions' leading writers at CARIFESTA 2008.

Early life and education

Niland was born in Guyana in 1954, and has lived in Surrey with her husband and children since 1971. After studying as a mature student at Hillcroft College in Britain, she went on to read for her Modern Arts degree at Kingston University and then to take her PGCE.

Collaborations

Elly Niland and David Dabydeen dramatised Harold Sonny Ladoo’s short novel No Pain Like This Body – depicting the terrifying world of a family brutalised by violence, poverty and nature itself. Set in a Hindu community in the Eastern Caribbean in 1905 during the August rainy season, it centres on a poor rice-growing family's struggle to survive. No Pain Like this Body was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2003.

BBC commission

"The Fog", a story about a sickness spreading across Malaysia, was specially commissioned for the season and was read by Liz Sutherland on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.

Fiction

"Market Day", from her Bone Soup collection, was shortlisted for the inaugural Guardian and 4th Estate short story prize in 2016.
"The Fog", a story about a sickness spreading across Malaysia, was specially commissioned for the BBC's Commonwealth Stories season and was read by Liz Sutherland on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
Niland is currently working on a collection of creole stories set in a fictional village in Guyana.

Prizes