Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning writer, novelist, poet, memoirist and broadcaster of Jamaican and Irish mixed heritage based in London. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death (Canongate) won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Two new titles: Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited and a brand new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury were published together with a double book launch in May 2024. An eagerly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death Misses Death universe is due for publication with Canongate in spring 2026.
Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published in a hardback edition by Rough Trade Books in February 2023. The poem Pessimism is for Lightweights has since been donated to The Peoples History Museum in Manchester where it is now on permanent display. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival, (alongside poet Henry Normal and author Patrice Lawrence) and also an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex.Salena Godden's work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on BBC radio, TV and film. Her many credits include her contribution to the BAFTA award-winning Life and Rhymes hosted by Benjamin Zephaniah (Sky TV), and contributing a commissioned poem ‘My Heart is a Boat' to BBC Radio 2’s Windrush 75 concert at the Royal Albert Hall which recently was awarded a prestigious Aria Award 2024. Godden co-starred in the award-winning indie anti-rom-com movie Brakes alongside Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and Julia Davies, written and directed by Mercedes Grower.
A consistent supporter of the work of fellow poets, writers and artists, she co-hosts and co-produces an arts and culture radio show and podcast Roaring 20’s Radio for Soho Radio with art journalist Amah-Rose Abrams and poet Matt Abbott. Her essay Shade was published in award-winning anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound). Other noted published essays include Skin broadcast on The Essay on BBC Radio 3; We are The Champions published in Others (Unbound); And Broken Biscuits published in Smashing it! Working class artists on life, art and making it happen (Saqi). Godden has had several volumes of poetry published including Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press 2011) Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye Books 2014) Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance (Rough Trade Books 2018) plus also a literary childhood memoir, Springfield Road (Unbound 2014). She has produced four studio albums to date - her self-produced poetry album LIVEwire (Nymphs and Thugs) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Prize.
Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning writer, novelist, poet, memoirist and broadcaster of Jamaican and Irish mixed heritage based in London. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death (Canongate) won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Two new titles: Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited and a brand new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury were published together with a double book launch in May 2024. An eagerly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death Misses Death universe is due for publication with Canongate in spring 2026.
Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published in a hardback edition by Rough Trade Books in February 2023. The poem Pessimism is for Lightweights has since been donated to The Peoples History Museum in Manchester where it is now on permanent display. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival, (alongside poet Henry Normal and author Patrice Lawrence) and also an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex.Salena Godden's work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on BBC radio, TV and film. Her many credits include her contribution to the BAFTA award-winning Life and Rhymes hosted by Benjamin Zephaniah (Sky TV), and contributing a commissioned poem ‘My Heart is a Boat' to BBC Radio 2’s Windrush 75 concert at the Royal Albert Hall which recently was awarded a prestigious Aria Award 2024. Godden co-starred in the award-winning indie anti-rom-com movie Brakes alongside Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and Julia Davies, written and directed by Mercedes Grower.
A consistent supporter of the work of fellow poets, writers and artists, she co-hosts and co-produces an arts and culture radio show and podcast Roaring 20’s Radio for Soho Radio with art journalist Amah-Rose Abrams and poet Matt Abbott. Her essay Shade was published in award-winning anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound). Other noted published essays include Skin broadcast on The Essay on BBC Radio 3; We are The Champions published in Others (Unbound); And Broken Biscuits published in Smashing it! Working class artists on life, art and making it happen (Saqi). Godden has had several volumes of poetry published including Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press 2011) Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye Books 2014) Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance (Rough Trade Books 2018) plus also a literary childhood memoir, Springfield Road (Unbound 2014). She has produced four studio albums to date - her self-produced poetry album LIVEwire (Nymphs and Thugs) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Prize.
