Caribbean Biography

Determined, imperious, flighty, charming, Beryl McBurnie was born in Trinidad and went to New York in the early 1940s to study dance and drama. She also made a name for herself as a dancer and singer, Belle Rosette. But she turned her back on the bright lights to return to Trinidad. There she continued the work she had begun before World War II, researching and performing the dances of the Caribbean, especially those that drew on African traditions. She was part of an anticolonial movement that recognized the unique culture of the country and the region and eventually led Trinidad and Tobago to independence. Artistically, McBurnie's work influenced dancers throughout the region and beyond. She also devoted years to building the Little Carib Theatre. Intended as a home for folk dance, it also housed Derek Walcott's Theatre Workshop and became a crucible for the performing arts. This book portrays the woman, explores the influences that shaped McBurnie and those whom she influenced in turn, and tells of her struggle to realize a vision she nurtured for decades.

This succinct account the life of Nobel laureate Derek Walcott focuses on his development as poet, playwright and man of the theatre: director, producer, and teacher. Friends and colleagues who figured in his career are recalled. The importance of his native St Lucia and family influences in the shaping of his creativity and his view of the world are highlighted, as these evolved in synergy with his receptivity to the poetry and theatre of the wider world. In this evolution, the tensions and complex nuances of the concept "home" are seen as an informing factor. The story points to Walcott's seminal contribution to the emergence of Caribbean literature, with his response to the region's colonial history as a central factor.

Lucille Mathurin Mair (née Walrond) made a mammoth contribution to women in Jamaica and across the world. In this biography, Verene Shepherd traces Mair's evolving ideology through her roles as professional historian, wife, mother, mentor, diplomat, national and international civil servant, legislator, and women's rights activist. Mair's tireless commitment to the principles of justice and equality for women guided her work and she particularly sought to centre women of the Global South in the development agenda. The accounts of Mair's myriad and often uncredited contributions at the University of the West Indies, the United Nations, and as a senator in the Government of Jamaica are enhanced by previously unpublished extracts from her notes and personal papers and interviews with her friends and colleagues. Shepherd weaves these sources together to give us a thought-provoking study of the evolution of a rebel woman.

Una Marson's work embodied anti-colonialism, anti-racism, feminism, class politics and pan-Africanism. Her efforts in championing Jamaican literature, as well as her avid support for Caribbean writers in Britain and the region, made her a key proponent of the development of a national and West Indian literary canon. She challenged racial inequality, affirmed standards of black beauty and black identity, and explored the complexities of gender, religious discrimination and class/economic exploitation. She did not frame her work around a single cause but, instead, she was mindful of the multiple intersections of oppression. In the end, through her advocacy and pioneering work, Marson achieved a voice for the oppressed.

Densil A. Williams explores the life and career of Sir Richard Benjamin Richardson, affectionately known as Richie, in this captivating biography. Richie, who began from modest beginnings in Five Islands Village, Antigua, rose to international cricket stardom. The book traces his evolution from a skilled footballer and hotel bartender to a dominant cricket player, and later a successful businessman and philanthropist. It showcases how Richie's early hardships, including his father's death, shaped his indomitable spirit and the leadership skills that would later define his illustrious career. As captain of the West Indies Cricket Team from 1992 to 1996, Richie made a profound impact on the sport and lead his team to numerous victories. His innovative contributions, such as his iconic maroon broad hat and legendary hook shot, cemented his status as a cricket icon. Williams's narrative, enriched by meticulous research and Richie's own words, offers an intimate look at Richie's remarkable life both on and off the cricket field. Richie's legacy transcends cricket, which marks him as an ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda and a global role model. This entry in the Caribbean Biography series not only celebrates Richie's sporting achievements and his contributions off the field – including receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws from the UWI, Five Islands Campus – but also highlights his resilience, leadership and triumph.

This biography of Marcus Garvey documents the forging of his remarkable vision of pan-Africanism and highlights his organizational skills in framing a response to the radical global popular upsurge following the First World War (1914-1918). Central to Garvey's response was the development of organizations under the umbrella of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, which garnered the transnational support of several million members and sympathizers and challenged white supremacist practices and ideas. Garvey established the ideological pillars of twentieth century pan-Africanism in promoting self-determination and self-reliance for Africa's independence. Although Garvey travelled widely and lived abroad in New York and London, he spent his early years in Jamaica. Rupert Lewis traces how Garvey's Jamaican formation shaped his life and thought and how he combated the British colonial authorities as well as fought deep-rooted self-doubt and self-rejection among Jamaican black people. Garvey's much neglected political and cultural work at the local level is discussed as part of his project to stimulate self-determination in Africa and its diaspora.

Earl Lovelace is a major Caribbean writer, one of the few of his generation to have lived in and written almost exclusively from the region. With sharp observation and even sharper wit, his writing pulses with the rhythm, flow and vibrancy of the lives of "ordinary" people, whose culture and language he champions. Lovelace explores the intricacies of his multicultural society as it grapples with a legacy of slavery, indentureship and colonialism and faces the challenges of independence and new nationhood, and he does so with compassion and true understanding. In this brief but rich biography, Funso Aiyejina explores the writer and his work with the intimacy of a friend and the perceptiveness of a scholar. Lovelace himself is as storied as one of his characters, and the man and his life shine through. This biography is essential reading for any student of Caribbean literature, and will be equally compelling for a general reader.

A pioneer in the field of cultural studies, Stuart Hall produced an impressive body of work on the relationship between culture and power. His contributions to critical theory and the study of politics, culture, communication, media, race, diaspora and postcolonialism made him one of the great public intellectuals of the late twentieth century. For much of his career, Hall was better known outside the Caribbean than in the region. He made his mark most notably in the United Kingdom as head of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and at the Open University, where his popular lecture series was broadcast on BBC2. His influence expanded from the late 1980s onwards as the field of cultural studies gained traction in universities worldwide. Hall's middle-class upbringing in colonial Jamaica and his subsequent experience of immigrant life in the United Kingdom afforded him a unique perspective that informed his groundbreaking work on the complex power dynamics of race, class and empire. This accessible, lively biography provides glimpses into Hall's formative Jamaican years and includes segments from his hitherto unpublished early writing. Annie Paul gives us an engaging introduction to a globally renowned Caribbean intellectual.

Walter Rodney was an exceptional scholar-activist who not only interpreted the consequences of centuries of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism but also engaged in the struggles to change their racial, social and economic legacies. As these legacies persist into the twenty-first century, his life and writings remain profoundly relevant. He contributed to a distinctive intellectual blend of Black Power and Marxism, that had mass support in the movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the Caribbean and Africa. He had a capacity for listening to people which drew Rastafari youth activists and others to his "groundings". When the Jamaican government banned him from returning to work at the University of the West Indies in October 1968, there was a mass upheaval, and these demonstrations stimulated the Black Power and socialist movements throughout the Caribbean. His most productive years were at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where he taught development studies and wrote his seminal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. A profound scholar of the history of the working people of his native Guyana, he embraced the democratic struggles of Africans and Indians. His radical activism and mass appeal as a leader of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana led President Forbes Burnham to have him assassinated.