Trinidad And Tobago Literature
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Trinidad And Tobago Literature
Trinidad and Tobago literature has its roots in oral storytelling among African slaves, the European literary roots of the French creoles and in the religious and folk tales of the Indian indentured immigrants. It blossomed in the 20th century with the writings of C. L. R. James, V. S. Naipaul and Saint Lucian-born Derek Walcott as part of the growth of West Indian literature. Origins One of the earliest works in the Anglophone Caribbean literature was Jean-Baptiste Philippe's 1824 work, ''Free Mulatto''.Gerard Besson"J.B. Philippe" The Caribbean History Archives, Paria Publishing Co. Ltd, 10 August 2011. Michel Maxwell Philip's 1854 work, ''Emmanuel Appadocca: A Tale of the Boucaneers'', is considered the country's first novel. Notable writers See also * West Indian literature References External links * Selwyn Cudjoe"Literature and National Development" trinicenter.com, 21 June 2004. * Selwyn Cudjoe trinicenter.com, 24 June 2001. * Selwyn Ryan"Beyond native bounda ...
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African Slavery
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the Ancient history, ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade (which started in the 16th century) began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practiced despite it being illegal. In the relevant literature African slavery is categorized into indigenous slavery and export slavery, depending on whether or not slaves were traded beyond the continent. Slavery in historical Africa was practised in many different forms: Debt slavery, enslavement of war captives, military slavery, slavery for prostitution, and enslavement of criminals were all practised in various parts of Africa. Slavery for domestic and court purposes was widespread throughou ...
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Kevin Baldeosingh
Kevin Baldeosingh (born 1963)Author information
at Peepal Tree Press. is a newspaper , author and , who has been involved in many controversial social issues, especially in respect to religious issues. He has worked with the Trinidad Express, Newsday and the Trinidad Guardian. In July 2017, after 25 years in the field, he ceased working as a journalist when his contract was not renewed by the Trinidad Guardian and he was not hired by any other media company.

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Merle Hodge
Merle Hodge (born 1944) is a Trinidadian novelist and literary critic. Her 1970 novel '' Crick Crack, Monkey'' is a classic of West Indian literature, and Hodge is acknowledged as the first black Caribbean woman to have published a major work of fiction. Biography Merle Hodge was born in 1944, in Curepe, Trinidad, the daughter of an immigration officer. She received both her elementary and high-school education in Trinidad, and as a student of Bishop Anstey High School, she won the Trinidad and Tobago Girls' Island Scholarship in 1962. The scholarship allowed her to attend University College, London, where she pursued studies in French. In 1965 she completed her B.A. Hons. and received a Master of Philosophy degree in 1967, the focus of which concerned the poetry of the French Guyanese writer Léon Damas. Hodge did quite a bit of travelling after obtaining her degree, working as a typist and baby-sitter to make ends meet. She spent much time in France and Denmark but visited many ...
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Errol Hill
Errol Gaston Hill (5 August 1921 – 16 September 2003) was a Trinidadian-born playwright, actor and theatre historian, "one of the leading pioneers in the West Indies theatre".Michael Hughes, ''A Companion to West Indian Literature'', Collins, 1979, p. 57. Beginning as early as the 1940s, he was the leading voice for the development of a national theatre in the West Indies. He was the first tenured faculty member of African descent at Dartmouth College in the United States, joining the drama department there in 1968. Career Hill was an actor and announcer with the British Broadcasting Corporation in London, and subsequently went to teach at the University of West Indies, in Kingston, Jamaica, and Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, as creative arts tutor (1953–58 and 1962–65). Between 1958 and 1966 he was also working as a playwright. He was a teaching fellow at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria (1965–67), and then an associate professor of drama at Richmond College of the Cit ...
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Rosa Guy
Rosa Cuthbert Guy () (September 1, 1922Margalit Fox"Rosa Guy, 89, Author of Forthright Novels for Young People, Dies" ''The New York Times'', June 7, 2012. – June 3, 2012) was a Trinidad-born American writer who grew up in the New York metropolitan area. Her family had immigrated and she was orphaned when young. Raised in foster homes, she later was acclaimed for her books of fiction for adults and young people that stressed supportive relationships. Guy lived and worked in New York City, where she was among the founders of the Harlem Writers Guild in 1950. It was highly influential in encouraging African-American writers to gain publication and had a high rate of success. Guy died of cancer on June 3, 2012. Early years Rosa Cuthbert was born in 1922 in Diego Martin, on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. She and her younger sister Ameze were left with relatives when their parents Audrey and Henry Cuthbert emigrated in 1927 to the United States. The children did not join ...
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Cecil Gray (poet)
Cecil Gray (February 11, 1923 – March 14, 2020) was a Caribbean poet, former educator, and the author of several textbooks and anthologies of West Indian literature. He resided in Canada. Biography Gray was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1923, and also lived in Jamaica. He obtained a teacher's certificate and an external degree from London University. For over a decade, he served as a Senior Lecturer then as Director of the In-Service Diploma in Education Programme at the Mona and St. Augustine campuses of the University of the West Indies. Gray's first book of poetry, ''The Woolgatherer'', was largely autobiographical and was published by Peepal Tree Press in 1994. Since then he has published several subsequent collections, including ''Lillian's Songs'' (1996), ''Leaving the Dark'' (1998), ''Plumed Palms'' (2000), ''Careenage'' (2003), ''Only the Waves'' (2005), ''Possession'' (2009), ''Lighthouses'' (2011), and "Evening Candles" (2016). His poetry has also been ...
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Albert Gomes
Albert Maria Gomes (25 March 1911 – 13 January 1978) was a Trinidadian unionist, politician, and writer of Portuguese descent, was the first Chief Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the founder of the Political Progress Groups and later led the Party of Political Progress Groups. He was active in the formation of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in Trinidad and Tobago and played a role in forcing Sir Alexander Bustamante out of the Federal Democratic Labour Party. Gomes briefly led DLP in 1963 when factions loyal to briefly ousted Rudranath Capildeo after Capildeo left Trinidad and Tobago to take up a position at the University of London. However, the rank and file of the party stood behind Capildeo, and Gomes left the party. Biography Albert Gomes was born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad. His father had immigrated from Madeira in 1892; his mother's family had arrived in Trinidad in 1878 via Nevis and Antigua. After completing secondary school Gomes studied journalis ...
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Ramabai Espinet
Ramabai Espinet (born 1948) is an Indo-Trinidadian poet, novelist, essayist, and critic from Trinidad and Tobago. Espinet was born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. She attended York University in Toronto, Canada before earning a Ph.D. at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. She currently teaches English at Seneca College. Her writings on Euro-Creole women is influenced from works from Jean Rhys and Phyllis Shand Allfrey. Most of Espinet's works relate to her Indo-Caribbean heritage. Sister Vision Press published her first four works in Toronto, Canada. Influence Espinet has stated that she desires to illustrate the experiences of Indo-Caribbeans and highlight the effects of alcoholism and abuse on West Indian women. West Indians have said that the book ''The Swinging Bridge'' gives them values, articulates their experiences, and contains "language for the healing". Although Espinet talks specifically about San Fernandians, Indo-Caribbeans have noted ...
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Ralph De Boissière
Ralph Anthony Charles de Boissière (6 October 1907 – 16 February 2008) was a Trinidad-born Australian social realist novelist. Described as "an outspoken opponent of racism, injustice, greed and corruption, a passionate humanist with a vision of a just society", he was the author of four novels although most acclaimed for the first two: ''Crown Jewel'' and ''Rum and Coca-Cola'', both originally published in the 1950s. A fifth novel called ''Homeless in Paradise'' remains unpublished. Biography Ralph de Boissière was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the son of Armand de Boissière, a solicitor, and Maude Harper, an Englishwoman who died three weeks later. He attended Queen's Royal College and during this time discovered the Russian authors, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gorky, Chekhov, Pushkin and Gogol, who were to remain a lasting influence: Initially he wished to become a concert pianist but on leaving school took a job as a salesman, which enlightened him to the living and working ...
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Nicole Craig
Nicole Craig (born 14 January 1974) is poet, short-story writer, editor, copy writer, artist and curator from Trinidad and Tobago. Early life and education She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, to Lorna Craig and Clyde Telesford and is the youngest sister of Cleveland Telesford and Osborne Craig. She attended Nelson Street Girls' RC School, Success/Laventille Composite School, Barataria Secondary Comprehensive School and the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. Career Craig has spent over 11 years in the advertising industry in Trinidad and Tobago. She has worked for companies such as McCann Erickson, Lonsdale Saatchi and Saatchi and its group of companies. She has had several successful art exhibitions, and is known throughout the art world for her interesting uses of art to mirror deities and real life situations with a style that is uniquely her own. This style gained her a spot on the Absolut Vodka, Absolut C ...
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Vahni Capildeo
Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo (born Surya Vahni Priya Capildeo; born 1973) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers (including V. S. Naipaul, a cousin of Capildeo's, and Neil Bissoondath). Biography Born in 1973 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Capildeo has lived in the United Kingdom since 1991. Capildeo is agender. They read English at Christ Church, Oxford, and were subsequently awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue graduate work in Old Norse and translation theory, also at Christ Church/the Faculty of English Language and Literature, towards their DPhil, ''Reading Egils saga Skallagrímssonar: saga, paratext, translations'' (2001). They intermitted from a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, in 2000–04 to spend time in Trinidad and Jamaica. This produced ''No Traveller Returns'' (Salt, 2003), a book-length poem sequence characterised by a reviewer as ...
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Wayne Brown (author)
Wayne Vincent Brown (born 18 July 1944 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; died 15 September 2009 in Stony Hill, Jamaica) was a columnist, poet and fiction writer, and a teacher and mentor to numerous Caribbean writers. Early life Wayne Brown was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to a Trinidadian father, Kenneth Vincent Brown, and a Barbadian mother, Vere Vincent Brown (''née'' Edghill). His grandfather was Vincent Brown, the Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago. His mother died soon after giving birth to him, and for most of his childhood Wayne was brought up by relatives, while his father worked as a puisne judge."Trevor Rhone, Wayne Brown are dead"
''The Jamaica Observer'', 16 September 2009.


Academic life

Brown had been a
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