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Raymond R. Ramcharitar is a
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
ian poet, playwright, fiction writer, historian and media and cultural critic.
Early life
Ramcharitar was educated at the
University of the West Indies, St Augustine, where he earned three degrees: a Bachelor's in Economics (1991), a Master's in Literature in English (2002) and a Doctorate in Cultural History (2007). He was awarded a fellowship to
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
's Creative Writing Program in 2000 by Nobel Laureate
Derek Walcott, where he studied poetry and drama.
Author
Ramcharitar's published works include academic and creative books and articles. His book ''The Island Quintet'' (fiction), a collection of novellas, was published by
Peepal Tree Press
Peepal Tree Press is a publisher based in Leeds, England which publishes Caribbean, Black British, and South Asian fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and academic books. It was founded after a paper shortage in Guyana halted production of new bo ...
, UK, 2009. It was shortlisted for the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, 2010 for the Caribbean & Canada. ''The Island Quintet'' was reviewed in the ''Trinidad & Tobago Review''. A reviewer for ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' compared Ramcharitar's prose to that of
Derek Walcott and
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...
.
''American Fall'', a collection of poems described as "confident and engaging", was published by Peepal Tree in 2007.
He published a historical work, ''A History of Creole Trinidad, 1956-2010'' A book of media criticism, ''Breaking the News, Media & Culture in Trinidad'', was published by Lexicon, a Trinidadian publisher (2005).
Ramcharitar's play ''Paradiso'' was one of three winners of the
Warehouse Theatre
The Warehouse Theatre was a professional producing theatre in the centre of Croydon, England. Based in an oak-beamed Victorian former cement warehouse, it had 100 seats. The theatre closed in 2012 following withdrawal of funding and the disco ...
's 2002
International Playwriting Festival, and he was invited to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in September 2003, on a radio drama fellowship.
Ramcharitar's work as a poet is, unusually for contemporary Caribbean poets, highly formal and entirely in
Standard English. He uses traditional forms such as the
sonnet, villanelle and
sestina
A sestina (, from ''sesto'', sixth; Old Occitan: ''cledisat'' ; also known as ''sestine'', ''sextine'', ''sextain'') is a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end ...
. He is influenced by Walcott,
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...
,
R. S. Thomas and
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
.
As a fiction writer, he has been compared to
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...
, but his explicit sensuality and tendency to experimentation display debts to writers as diverse as
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...
and
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
. The epigraph to ''The Island Quintet'' was from Pynchon's ''
Gravity's Rainbow
''Gravity's Rainbow'' is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, ...
''.
Academic
As an academic Ramcharitar is a polemical revisionist.. His latest work is ''A History of Creole Trinidad'', ''1956-2010'' (Palgrave Macmillan). His doctoral thesis ("The Hidden History of Trinidad: Underground Culture in Trinidad, 1870-1970") provided a "corrective" narrative to the largely ethno-centric historical narratives of West Indian nationalist historians. He has published similarly oriented articles on culture and tourism, literary criticism and history.
["The Hostile, Recalcitrant Past", in ''Breaking New Ground'' (eds Daive Dunkely et al), Ian Randle Press, Jamaica, 2010.] His work on media and culture—media and collective memory, and the Caribbean emotional economy—seeks to establish a presence in largely untapped areas of Caribbean or West Indian cultural, critical, and media scholarship.
Ramcharitar has lectured in theatre arts, cultural studies, and literature as an adjunct at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, and works presently as a Communications Consultant in Trinidad. He started writing as a journalist in 1991, working with the ''
Trinidad Guardian
The ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'' (together with the ''Sunday Guardian'') is the oldest daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper is considered the newspaper of record for Trinidad and Tobago.
History
Its first edition was published ...
'', and the ''
Trinidad Express
The ''Trinidad and Tobago Express'', better known as ''Daily Express'' (and the weekend editions ''Saturday Express'' and ''Sunday Express''), is one of three daily newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago. The ''Daily Express'' as per its masthead is p ...
'' newspapers. His journalism has been published throughout the Caribbean and internationally. He has had articles published in ''Islands Magazine'', ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (London), ''Hemispheres'', ''Skywritings'', ''
Caribbean Beat
''Caribbean Beat'', founded in 1992, is a bimonthly magazine, published in Port of Spain, Trinidad, covering the arts, culture and society of the Caribbean, with a focus on the region's English-speaking territories. It is distributed in-flight by C ...
'' and contributed to the ''Insight Guide to Trinidad and Tobago''.
References
External links
Trinidad Media Arts & Culture blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramcharitar, Raymond
Living people
Trinidad and Tobago non-fiction writers
Trinidad and Tobago novelists
Trinidad and Tobago poets
Trinidad and Tobago dramatists and playwrights
Trinidad and Tobago male writers
20th-century male writers
Year of birth missing (living people)
Male non-fiction writers