Ekwueme Michael Thelwell (born Michael Miles Thelwell; 25 July 1939) is a Jamaican novelist, essayist, professor and civil rights activist. He was in 1970 founding chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

Early life

Born Michael Miles Thelwell in Ulster Spring, Jamaica, he attended

Jamaica College Jamaica College (abbreviated J.C. or JC) is a State school, public, Christianity, Christian, secondary school and sixth form for Single-sex education, boys in Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. It was established in 1789 by Charles ...

and subsequently worked as public relations assistant for the Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation (1958–59). In 1959 he moved to the United States, where he was educated at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

(earning a BA, 1964) and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (MFA, 1969).

Activism

Thelwell was active in the Black Freedom Movement, the

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), also referred to as the Freedom Democratic Party, was an American political party created in 1964 as a branch of the populist Freedom Democratic organization in the state of Mississippi during the ...

(MFDP), and in 1963 he was the Director of the Washington office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (

SNCC The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segreg ...

). In the 1980s his anti-apartheid activism resulted in legislation enacting a law against corporate tax write-offs for US-based corporations paying taxes to the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regime in South Africa.
In a 2005 radio interview with

Amy Goodman Amy Goodman (born April 13, 1957) is an American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter, and author. Her investigative journalism career includes coverage of the East Timor independence movement, Morocco's occupation ...

of ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'', Thelwell said: "I didn’t really become black until I set foot in this country (America)."

Writing

Thelwell is widely known for his 1980 novel ''The Harder They Come'', based on the film of the same title about the life and death of real-life Jamaican folk-hero Ivanhoe " Rhyging" Martin. The novel was praised by Nigerian novelist

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and '' magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies ...

(who bestowed on Thelwell the

Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a ...

name Ekwueme, meaning "the man who always does what he says he will")Mary Ann French. "The People's Professor," ''Boston Globe'', 12 September 1999. and by literary critic

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

, who included it in his appendix to ''The Western Canon''. Thelwell has also published essays, criticism and commentary in ''

The Black Scholar ''The Black Scholar'' (''TBS''), the third-oldest journal of Black culture and political thought in the United States, was founded in 1969 near San Francisco, California, by Robert Chrisman, Nathan Hare, and Allan Ross. It is arguably the most in ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'', ''

The Massachusetts Review ''The Massachusetts Review'' is a literary quarterly founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It receives financial support from Five Col ...

'', '' Temps Modernes'', ''

Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affiliated Joh ...

'', ''

Présence Africaine ''Présence Africaine'' is a pan-African quarterly cultural, political, and literary magazine, published in Paris, France, and founded by Alioune Diop in 1947. In 1949, ''Présence Africaine'' expanded to include a publishing house and a bookstore ...

'' (Paris) and ''African Commentary''. A volume of his short stories and essays, ''Duties, Pleasures, and Conflicts: Essays in Struggle'', was released in 1987. He also helped prepare and edit the political memoirs of black activist

Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...

, ''Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael'' (2003). Thelwell is currently writing a critical study of Chinua Achebe, who dedicated his 1988 collection of essays '' Hopes and Impediments'' to Thelwell. Thelwell has also written two screenplays (''Washington Incident'', 1972; ''Girl Beneath the Lion'', 1978, with Paul Carter Harrison). He was a senior adviser on the television series '' Eyes on the Prize'' (part II; 1990).

Awards

Literary awards Thelwell has received include fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Society for the Humanities, the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

and the Centennial Medal of the Institute of Jamaica.

References

External links

Michael Thelwell - Giants in the Earth
YouTube.
''Who Speaks for the Negro'' Vanderbilt documentary website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thelwell, Ekwueme Michael Living people 20th-century American novelists African-American academics African-American novelists American male novelists Emigrants from British Jamaica to the United States Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1939 births Howard University alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Jamaican male novelists Jamaican activists 20th-century Jamaican novelists 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Massachusetts 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American people African-American male writers