Kamau Brathwaite

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Kamau Brathwaite. Courtesy University of Sussex.

Edward Kamau Brathwaite (born May 11, 1930) is one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. Brathwaite is the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry, Born to Slow Horses.

Brathwaite is noted for his studies of Black cultural life both in Africa and throughout the African diasporas of the world in works such as Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica; The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820; Contradictory Omens; Afternoon of the Status Crow; and History of the Voice.

Life

Kamau Brathwaite was born Lawson Edward Brathwaite in Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados. In 1945 he attended school at the Harrison College in Barbados and in 1949 he won the Barbados Scholarship and attended Cambridge University. In 1953, Brathwaite received an honors B.A. at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and also began his association with the BBC's Caribbean Voices Program in London. In 1954, he received a Diploma of Education from Pembroke College.

1955 found Brathwaite working as an Education Officer on the Gold Coast (Ghana) with the Ministry of Education. It was in 1960 that Brathwaite married the Guyanese Doris Monica Wellcome Guyana, in Guyana, while he was on leave from Ghana.

While in Ghana, Brathwaite's writing flowered with Odale's Choice (a play) premiering in Ghana at Mfantisman Secondary School. A full production of the play was later taken to Accra. In 1962-63, Brathwaite crossed the waters again and found himself as Resident Tutor in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies in St. Lucia. And, later in 1963, he made his journey to the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica to teach in the History Department.

In 1965, he completed a Ph.D. at the University of Sussex.

In 1966, Brathwaite spearheaded, as Co-founder and Secretary, the organization of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) from London. In 1971 he launched Savacou, a journal of CAM, at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica. Also in 1971, Brathwaite received the name Kamau from N'gugi wa Thiong'o's grandmother at Limuru, Kenya, while on a City of Nairobi Fellowship to the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

During the years 1997-2000, Brathwaite spent three self-financed "Maroon Years" at "Cow Pasture," his now famous and, then, "post-hurricane" home in Barbados. During this period he married Beverley Reid, a Jamaican.

Brathwaite is Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, a position he has held since 1991.

Recognition

A holder of an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sussex and co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), Brathwaite has received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, and is a winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the Charity Randall Prize for Performance and Written Poetry.

In 2002, the University of Sussex presented Brathwaite with an Honorary Doctorate.

He also won:

• Cholmondeley Award, 1970.
• International Griffin Poetry Prize, 2006.

Publications

Poetry

• Rights of Passage. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.
• Odale's Choice. London: Evans Brothers, 1967.
• Masks. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
• Islands. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Penguin Modern Poets 15 (by Alan Bold, Edward Brathwaite, & Edwin Morgan). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1969.
• The Arrivants: A New World trilogy (Rights of Passage, Masks, Islands). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1973.
• Other Exiles. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
• Days and Nights. Mona, Jamaica: Caldwell Press, 1975.
• Black + Blues. Havana, Cuba: Casa de las Americas, 1976; New York: New Directions, 1995.
• Soweto. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1979.
• Word Making Man: Poem for Nicolás Guillén in Xaymaca. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1979.
• Mother Poem. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• Sun Poem. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• Gods of the Middle Passage. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982.
• Third World Poems. Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman, 1983.
• Jah Music. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1986.
• X/self. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Sappho Sakyi's Meditations. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1989.
• Shar. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1990.
• Middle Passages. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe, 1992; New York: New Directions, 1993.
• Trenchtown Rock. Providence, RI: Lost Roads, 1994.
• Ancestors: A reinvention of "Mother Poem," "Sun Poem," and "X/Self. New York: New Directions, 2001.
• Golokwati 2000. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 2002.
• LX, The Love Axe. Leeds, UK: Peepal Tree Press, 2002.
• Words Need Love Too. St. Martin, Caribbean: House of Nehesi, 2000.
• Born to Slow Horses. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005.
• Eleqquas. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010.
• Golokwati: A tidaltectics history of our thymes. (2 volumes), Barbados: University of the West Indies Press, 2011.

Fiction

• Dream Stories. Harlow, Essex, UK, & White Plains, NY: Longman, 1994.

Non-fiction

• The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770 - 1820. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1971.
• The Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica. London: New Beacon, 1970; London & Port of Spain, Trinidad: New Beacon, 1974.
• Caribbean Man in Space and Time: A bibliographical and conceptual approach. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1974.
• Contradictory Omens: Cultural diversity and integration in the Caribbean. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1974.
• Nanny, Sam Sharpe, and the Struggle for People's Liberation. Kingston, Jamaica: Agency for Public Information, 1977.
• Afternoon of the Status Crow (lecture). Jamaica: 1980; Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982.
• National Language Poetry. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982.
• Kumina. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1982.
• History of the Voice: The development of nation language in anglophone Caribbean poetry. London & Port of Spain, Trinidad: New Beacon, 1984.
• Roots: Essays in Caribbean literature. Havana: Case de las Americas, 1986; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993.
• The Poet and His Place in Barbadian Culture (lecture). Bridgetown, Barbados: Central Bank of Barbados, 1987.
• The Zea Mexican Diary, Sept 1926 - 7 Sept 1986. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
• MR (Magical Realism). Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 2002.

Juvenile

• Four Plays for Primary Schools. London: Longman, 1964.

Edited

• Iouanaloa: Recent writing from St. Lucia. Castries, St. Lucia: Printed for the Dept. of Extra Mural Studies, University of the West Indies, by the Govt. Printer, 1963.
• Our Ancestral Heritage: A bibliography of the roots of culture in the English-speaking Caribbean. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1976.
• Barbados Poetry: A checklist: Slavery to the present: Books, pamphlets, broadsheets, 1686-1978. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1979.
• Jamaica Poetry: A checklist: Slavery to the present: Books, pamphlets, broadsheets, 1686-1978. Kingston, Jamaica: Jamaica Library Service, 1979.
• New Poets from Jamaica: An anthology. Kingston, Jamaica: Savacou, 1979.
• Dream Rock. Kingston, Jamaica: Jamaica Information Service, 1987.
• Barabajan poems, 1492-1992. Kingston, Jamaica: Savacou / Kingston, NY: Savacou North, 1994.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Caribbean poets

References

• Emily Allen Williams. The Critical Response to Kamau Brathwaite. Praeger, 2004.
• Kelly Baker Josephs. "Versions of X/Self: Kamau Brathwaite's Caribbean Discourse." Anthurium, 1.1 (Fall 2003): http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_1/issue_1/josephs-versions.htm.
• June Bobb. Beating a Restless Drum: The Poetics of Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott. New York: Africa World Press, 1997.
• Stuart Brown. The Art of Kamau Brathwaite. Wales: Seren, 1996.
• Loretta Collins. "From the 'Crossroads of Space' to the (dis)Koumforts of Home: Radio and the Poet as Transmuter of the Word in Kamau Brathwaite's 'Meridian' and Ancestors." Anthurium, 1.1 (Fall 2003): http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_1/issue_1/collins-crossroads.htm
• Raphael Dalleo. "Another 'Our America': Rooting a Caribbean Aesthetic in the Work of José Martí, Kamau Brathwaite and Édouard Glissant." Anthurium, 2.2 (Fall 2004): http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_2/issue_2/dalleo-another.htm.
• Melanie Otto, A Creole Experiment: Utopian Space in Kamau Brathwaite's "Video-Style" Works. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2009.
• Anna Reckin: "Tidalectic Lectures: Kamau Brathwaite's Prose/Poetry as Sound-Space." Anthurium, 1.1 (Fall 2003): http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_1/issue_1/reckin-tidalectic.htm.

External links

Poems

• "Human Nature"
• Kamau Brathwaite at Caribbean poetry
• Kamau Brathwaite profile and 3 poems at the Academy of American Poets.
• Kamau Brathwaite b. 1930 at the Poetry Foundation.

Prose

• Several articles by Brathwaite in CARIFESTA and Tapia from the Digital Library of the Caribbean

Audio/video

• Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
• Kamau Brathwaite at PennSound
• Kamau Brathwaite at YouTube

About

• Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados, 1930) at Poetry International
• Kamau Brathwaite (b.1930) at books and writers.
• Griffin Poetry Prize biography
• Kamau Brathwaite in Gale Contemporary Black Biography
• Edward "Kamau" Brathwaite at Writers of the Caribbean
• Edward Brathwaite at the Post-Colonial Web.