Jackie Kay is an award-winning Scottish writer. Born in 1961 to a Scottish mother and Nigerian father, Kay was adopted as a baby and grew up in Glasgow. Kay was political from a young age - her adoptive parents, Helen and John Kay, were part of the Communist Party for Great Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. A motorcycle accident at the age of 17 forced Kay into a long period of reading during her recovery, and from this she emerged a writer. In 1991 Kay published her debut collection of poems The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe) which was told in the three voices of an adoptive mother, birth mother, and adoptive child. The collection won the Saltire Society Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book Award, and heralded Kay as a new, distinctive voice. Kay’s next collection Other Lovers (1993) also explored a quest for identity but with regard to colonial histories and slavery. Kay has published many more poetry collections, as well as novels, short stories, radio and stage dramas. In 2016 she was appointed Makar (National Poet) of Scotland for five years, and in 2020 was awarded a CBE for services to literature.