October 1, 2025 • 42 mins
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What if everything we thought we knew about Caribbean literary history was incomplete? That's the premise of today's captivating conversation with Professor Alison Donnell, whose groundbreaking new book, Lost and Found: An A to Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean (Papillote Press 2025), challenges the traditional narrative that Caribbean literature primarily emerged in the 1950s through male writers who migrated abroad. Through painstaking research spanning decades, Donnell reveals a far richer literary landscape populated by remarkable women writers, Indo-Caribbean voices, and authors who remained within the Caribbean, crafting work specifically for local audiences.
The stories behind these recoveries are as fascinating as the writers themselves. We meet Vera Bell, the first female chief clerk of Jamaica's National Water Commission and prolific poet; Monica Skeet, who balanced a conservative teaching career with radical storytelling; and Edwina Melville, the first woman with a tractor license in Guyana who dedicated herself to representing Amerindian life. These weren't just writers – they were teachers, journalists, civil servants, and community leaders whose literary work formed part of a broader mission to build Caribbean cultural literacy.
Whether you're a Caribbean literature enthusiast or simply love stories of historical recovery and justice, this episode will transform how you understand the relationship between literature, identity, and cultural memory. Listen now to discover the writers who helped shape Caribbean consciousness long before we knew their names.
Alison Donnell is head of Humanities and Professor of Modern Literatures in English at the University of Bristol. She has published widely in the field of Caribbean literature, with significant contributions to the fields of literary history and culture, recovery research of women authors, and Caribbean literary archives. Her recent works reflect her ongoing commitment to exploring and expanding literary histories, including a special double issue of Caribbean Quarterly on Caribbean Literary Archives. Her latest monograph Creolized Sexualities: Undoing Heteronormativity in the literary imagination of the Anglo-Caribbean was published by Rutgers in 2021.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello, hello, everyone, andwelcome to another episode of
(00:23):
Strictly Facts, a guide toCaribbean history and culture,
where one of our essentialmissions is really understanding
the complex layers of ourcollective identity and
resilience.
Today we are turning our focus,in the ways of you know who we
are, into one of the most vitalaspects of our cultural heritage
(00:43):
, and that is in Caribbeanliterature.
Literary history is central tounderstanding the Caribbean's
past and present in many ways,and even future.
The written word has long beena tool of resistance, cultural
preservation, expression.
I could go on and on, but youknow, I think when we really
understand some of the writingsthat came out of the 20th
(01:05):
century in particular, that'swhere we really begin to
underscore Caribbean writers.
And you know how they begantheir craft to tell stories of
who they are, their experiences,and you know, particularly in
the face of colonialism andpost-colonial challenges,
(01:26):
colonial challenges.
And so, with us to extend thatconversation out a little bit
further before I get a littlebit ahead of myself, we are
joined by Head of Humanities andProfessor of Modern Literatures
in English at the University ofBristol, alison Donnell, whose
new book Lost and Found in A toZ of Neglected Writers of the
Anglophone Caribbean offers anexciting new lens through which
to view Caribbean literaryhistory.
(01:46):
By bringing attention towriters who have often been
overshadowed or excluded fromthe traditional canon, this book
really opens up new avenues forunderstanding Caribbean
creatives and literary activistswhose works shaped and you know
, and sometimes should haveshaped more increasingly the
cultural landscape in ways thathave not always been fully
(02:09):
recognized.
So, alison, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Before we get into the book,why don't you share a little bit
with our listeners?
You know your love forCaribbean literature and you
know your connection to theregion.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely so.
My connection to Caribbeanliterature began really in the
1980s, a long time ago, when Iwas studying for a degree in
English literature and I wasvery much committed to feminist
and anti-racist movements at thetime and engaged in those, and
I had a commitment to educatemyself if I wanted, you know, to
(02:46):
see this transformation interms of what we understand,
where we understand from and howto combat the structures that
were really still pervasive,very deeply pervasive, in the
academy then.
And so I was so fortunate thatI took a course in Caribbean
literature, taught by an amazingGuyanese academic called
Michael Jokes, and really thatwas it.
(03:08):
From that moment I just becamekind of ignited, everything
emotionally, intellectually, bythis amazing body of work that
was so exciting, both in itspolitical ambitions and in its
creative energies.
Both in its political ambitionsand in its creative energies
and I guess I was, you know itreally struck me that the world
(03:30):
had met in the Caribbean in themost violent way, cultures had
encountered each other in themost violent way, and yet the
writers were really there to atthis time of, I guess, like
people making projects,imagining in the aftermath of
that.
How do we all learn to occupythis space together?
(03:52):
How do we relate to each other?
How do we relate to the worldaround us?
And the social complexity, Iguess, of those stories and yet
the clarity with which theyarticulated kind of subjecthood
was really dazzling to me.
And that was it.
So I was hooked.
I took a PhD, and I think it wasreally when I took my PhD, and
(04:13):
my PhD was in women's writing,because I hadn't really been
taught much women's writing andI've been told as an
undergraduate that the womenweren't really writing till
later and everything in me waslike nah, nah, it's just not
true, I agree.
So I just.
Also it was slightlybewildering that you know, you
(04:35):
suddenly have given money tojust do what you want in your
own time, and that freaked meout a bit.
So I spent my time in thelibrary and I was really
fortunate that there was a bigcenter for Caribbean studies at
the University of Warwick soamazing primary resources and I
just literally nobody was upthere.
So I had a little piece ofpaper that was my bookshelf
(04:55):
bookmark and I would just takeoff like 10 volumes and read
them and go back the next day,take off another 10.
Make up another 10.
And I think I've just began torealize that there was this huge
body of writing that I hadn'tencountered, not only in the
work that I'd studied as anundergraduate but in the
critical writings that I'dstudied.
So I felt like the scale of thefield and the texture of the
(05:20):
field had just not beenrepresented, and that was where
I felt most excited to try andcontribute to that work.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And I think that's something you know, having read
Lost and Bound, that Itremendously see in this text as
well, and so I gave a littlebit of a preview.
But do you want to share alittle bit more about your
vision behind you know, thiscomposition, this edited
collection, what inspired you tocreate the collection and
perhaps what drew you to thisparticular project, having, you
(05:50):
know, gone from an undergrad andgrad student who opened
yourself up into understandingCaribbean literature to you know
there are layers to the to, I'msure, your journey in academia.
So you know what, what sort of,drew you to this project at
this time.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So I think I've been doing this really slow research
for a long time and I've beenvery aware that it wasn't really
an area.
So I was never able to publishmy PhD, which was on Jamaican
women writers before 1950.
There wasn't really an interestin that.
There was a kind of perception,I guess, that it was entangled
in the colonial past and itwasn't really where attention
(06:28):
was at the time.
And I mean I can understandthat there were so many
brilliant contemporary womenwriters publishing and I was
writing on them as well.
But I always had this idea thatthe long history was worth
telling, the deep history wasworth telling and I just
acquired as many sources as Icould over time.
So I would photocopy things Iwould you know.
(06:49):
Whenever I could, I would buyit, and I mean booksellers,
secondhand booksellers have alot of credit in this book.
You know who?
People who say to me I hadfound this volume, do you want
it?
So it took a long time, I guess, to build up a library.
So the Pioneer Press in Jamaicawas a really important press
publishing in the 1950s from theGleaner newspaper.
(07:10):
But we don't even have adefinitive list of the titles
published by that press.
So every one I bought, I wouldgo to the back and see what
other titles it listed did.
And so I have all of these kindof boring, nerdy spreadsheets
about trying to work out, likehow many books were published in
this list, what did thispublisher do, what did this
writer do?
And I could have probably goneon like that forever.
(07:33):
But I got some really majorfunding from the Leverhulme
Trust to have a project onCaribbean literary heritage, and
the website is literallywwwcaribbeanliteraryheritagecom,
and we made all kinds ofresources the project team who
were key to this including awonderful resource to find the
archives of Caribbean writersdeveloped by Marta
(07:56):
Fernandez-Kemper and we weredoing this research during 2019.
And then something happened in2019.
I had the global pandemic andour access to archives that we
planned.
I had a kind of open suitcasefor months, just looked at it.
I was bound to Jamaica andnever made that trip, and so I
(08:18):
suddenly thought, well, what Ido have for all of these books?
And, like most bibliophiles, Icollected more books than I'd
ever read.
So I started just giving myselfthe discipline of taking down
one of the writers, reading oneof the books and writing a
Facebook post about it, and sothe whole A to Z started that
(08:38):
way and I was really amazed byhow historians and other
contemporary writers had neverheard of these writers and were
interested and excited by them.
So I realized really that mysense that there was this very
narrow canon was not wrong.
It wasn't just in the academythat these writers had been lost
(08:58):
.
They've been lost moregenerally to readers and
interested publics.
And then the wonderful PollyPetillo from Papiuk Press
approached me and said, howabout publishing that A to Z?
And I think she probablythought it would be quite a
short book because the entrieswere quite short on Facebook.
But that's when the professor inme kicked in, I think, and I
(09:20):
realized that one of the thingsthat had really struck me when
I'd been looking for thesewriters was very often like a
writer, like Vera Bell.
Her poem Ancestor on theauction block is anthologized in
very many places, but if you goto the author bibliographies
either she's missing or it justsays a writer from Jamaica.
(09:40):
And I had this really keensense that I couldn't represent
these writers without knowingwho they were.
So the biographical researchbecame a really important part
of this project and some of themost challenging aspect of it as
well and some of the writerswho were in there.
There's still not that much oftheir life I've been able to
(10:01):
tell.
But I'm hoping that publishingthis will act as a catalyst and
everyone will say, hey, shedidn't know that about Claude
Thompson from Jamaica, and thenthey'll come forward.
So the same with thebibliography.
So it became a much morescholarly book because I felt
like I'm at the stage now of mycareer where I cannot write
about all of these writers inthis book, but they all need to
(10:24):
be written about, and far morestill.
So if I could go through thenewspaper libraries, if I could
go through all thebibliographers and do my very
best to give scholars who arevery, very time poor today and
whom the career demands of beingin the academy are very
pressured, if I could give thema kind of foothold to do this
(10:46):
sort of archival research, myhope was that these writers will
be more fully recovered.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Thank you for that introduction.
First of all, I think thatunderscores, you know, just what
, to me, was just such a veryimpressive collection.
Because I think sometimes whenwe think of particular texts,
right, we think of the momentthat they were published.
We think of particular texts,right, we think of the moment
that they were published and ofcourse we don't always think of
the lives in which the authorsled or you know, their, their
(11:14):
experiences, that evenmanifested in these texts a lot
of times.
Um, and you also brought up thecanon of Caribbean literature,
which brings me to sort of to mynext question, in that from
reading it I was glad that Iwasn't sort of alone as somebody
who loves Caribbean literaturebut is not, you know, in the
(11:34):
sort of English disciplineformally.
Figures of Caribbean literaturewho sort of kicked off or were
the catalyst of Caribbeanliterature, particularly in the
20th century, come from thissort of 1950s moment, you know,
of migrations, of windrush, etc.
(11:56):
Right Moving particularly toEurope, to the UK, and then
really, you know, helping toconcentrate in what becomes
known as this Caribbeanliterature canon, and in a lot
of ways this text debunks thatright.
It helps to really underscorethat.
You know, our canon is notnecessarily traditionally only
(12:18):
male, that it also wasn't justor didn't really start in the
1950s.
There are just a lot of thingsthat I think this text
complicates.
And so, whether that's timeperiod, as I said, gender,
ethnicity, as well as somethingthat I was blown to here, just
because you know it takes us onmultiple routes, whether that's,
(12:39):
you know, the impact ofIndo-Caribbean writers, of
multiracial Caribbean writers,etc.
And so in what ways do youthink the traditional canon has
limited our understanding of ourCaribbean literary history?
And, you know, certainly, inwhat ways have some of the
writers that you brought tolight through this text helped
to reshape that?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, thanks, that's a great question.
I mean I think in very manyways.
Yeah, thanks, that's a greatquestion.
(13:25):
I mean I think in very manyways.
But perhaps to summarize, Ithink genre, absolutely.
So I you know the shaping ofgenre and our idea of the novel
being this, the form of givingconsciousness to West Indian
literature, I think is shaped byexternal forces.
So genre, because really theshort story in very, very many
(13:48):
ways was a form that wasdominant and prevalent at this
time.
Definitely, gender, you know, asI said, you know I could find
no women really of this periodwhen I was studying and
subsequently I found like fouror five anthologies of Caribbean
literature were published inthe 1960s, edited by Andrew
(14:08):
Sulkey.
You know really great people.
Not a single one of them has aCaribbean-born woman writer in
them.
So gender was reallysignificant.
And location, I think so, as yousaid, it might have been Ken
Ramchand who said that Londonwas the literary capital of the
Caribbean at this time, but thatnotion really that the making
(14:33):
of the professional writer andmigration went together, that
you couldn't really be a writerin the Caribbean.
So I think we miss the writersin the Caribbean because of that
idea.
And then I guess finallyaudience because of that idea
and then I guess finallyaudience.
So this notion that you'rereally a writer if you write to
the major publishing houses tobe reviewed by all the literary
(14:54):
press in London and you'rewriting for kind of a literary
readership, because very many ofthe writers that I have found
they they were storytelling anda lot of those stories were for
children and they wanted thosestories to be imprint because
they wanted Caribbean classroomsto have material of a Caribbean
nature and I guess, in terms ofwhat I found was absolutely a
(15:27):
lot of the women were writingfor very particular sort of
communities.
So you know someone like EulaRedhead who had nine of her
stories broadcast on what wasseen as the sort of literary
platform of the mid-century, theCaribbean Voices Radio
Programme.
She's really writing veryspecifically about Grenadian
folklore and you know she'swriting for a program that was
broadcast back in the Caribbean.
It had to go via London butthat's where it was.
(15:49):
And so I think you know someonelike Edwina Melville who's
writing very, very specificallyto bring the Rupanuni in Guyana
to life and the lives of thepeople there.
So I think that that idea thatwriting was part of this huge
project of building Caribbeancultural literacy, you know, and
(16:10):
very many of these people werecommitted teachers in their
professional lives as well.
So this kind of mission ofcreating a body of work through
which an education system couldbe transformed, through which
people's reading materials andreading of themselves could be
transformed, I guess thatshaping of the nation at home, I
think we really missed.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
That is a tremendous point, I think.
In many ways, right, I'mcaptivated, as you've pointed us
, to the writers taking it uponthemselves to really shape what
is Caribbean history, Caribbeannationalism, etc.
The work that they do and thedifficulties with being just a
(16:55):
writer, right, it's somethingthat, as you pointed to, was
potentially much more feasibleonce you know you migrated.
But many of these writers whowere Caribbean-born in this text
had several other jobs, right,which I found amazing, when I
don't want to give too manypeople away from the text, but
(17:15):
just the wealth of work thatthey were doing in addition to
writing some of these texts.
And so could you maybe share alittle bit more about how, upon
doing this research, younavigated, understanding, you
know, the multiple roles andjobs that these people took up
in addition to their careers aswriters, as authors, as poets,
(17:35):
etc in addition to their careersas writers, as authors, as
poets, etc.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yes, absolutely.
So I think that, again, thiskind of sense of who we held on
to as a writer, I think was todo with this making of
professional authorship, whokind of promoted themselves as a
writer as well as who actuallywas writing.
And there was a sense, I think,amongst the writers who were
based in the Caribbean, that itwas their writings that mattered
rather than their identity as awriter.
So they were journalists aswell, they were teachers very
(18:07):
often, but they were also likein the commercial world.
They were sometimes homemakers.
Really, what mattered was theirwriting.
So that's what they werecommitted to seeing their
writings into the world.
So I guess what I mean by thatwas somebody who wants to be a
professional writer, wantedcommercial return, they wanted
(18:29):
to be able, their writingsneeded to be commercially viable
, and so the ones who wereactually writing at home in a
way were able to write that wasfree from that expectation, free
from the marketplace.
So I had the sense really thattheir sense of who they were
(18:49):
writing for was much stronger,because they weren't interested
in metropolitan approval in thesame way.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, I ask that because you know, reading purely
, you know, one of the peopleoff the top of my head was
reading about Vera Bell andlearning that, you know, she was
the first female chief clerk ofthe National Water Commission
in Jamaica, right.
And so that is a story withinitself that I hope somebody
underscores, right, and so thatis a story within itself that I
hope somebody underscores Right.
But to think that, you know, ontop of that feat, she did so
many other things within hercareer as a writer, as you point
to, and so these are just youknow, several reasons why maybe
(19:28):
my nerdy historian self wasgushing over this text.
Yeah, you sort of mentioned, oralluded to a little bit earlier
the difficulties with sort of,you know, having to navigate,
finding these biographies ofthese writers, and so what was
that experience like?
What were some of thechallenges that you faced while
(19:50):
researching these lesser-knownCaribbean writers and their
works, and sort of how did yougo about recovering and
documenting their literarycontributions?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Thinking about traditional research first.
So even some of those sourcesare very scarce.
You know a lot of newspapers,for example, haven't been
digitized or incomplete in theirruns and a lot of them have
suffered from the impact ofclimate.
You know, they literally areperishing as you see them.
And then a lot of the writerswho publish books would have had
(20:22):
very limited print runs.
So it's quite possible thatsome of the volumes, like
Barbara Jones's Among thePotatoes possibly there were
only ever 50 copies printed andshe gave them away to people who
were important to her.
So to find one of those isreally rare now, and obviously
because Caribbean lives are verydiasporic lives, papers travel
(20:44):
and things become kind ofdetached from each other or
scattered.
And then I guess mostexcitingly but also difficult to
access, is the fact that Ialways thought they're not lost,
they're just unfound, like if Ican find them, and so many of
the papers are still in familyhands.
(21:05):
So so many importantmanuscripts are still being held
by families and that's great,but it also means that they're
not open for researchers really.
So we need to be thinking.
You know, collectively, what todo about that.
But in terms of the sleuthingaspect of it, because I found
these papers in Canada, in theUS, in Spain, in the UK.
(21:25):
So I joke that I have aliterary detective agency and
that everybody I know is part ofit, but it's not really a joke.
So you know, as I said, I'vekind of kept these names and
added whenever I could.
But I also put out adverts innewspapers.
You know, I put out an advertin the newspaper in Barbados for
(21:48):
Monica Skeet, the writer, andthat was really productive.
I put out a TV advert inGrenada for Eula Redhead, and so
I was was aware that, you know,I needed to reach people who
may actually be very elderlythemselves now, who would know
these writers.
And I guess also, just, I'vebeen so fortunate to work with a
(22:11):
community of other interestedscholars.
So at the very end, when I wastrying to finish the book, I
couldn't find an obituary for WGOgilvie and it was just about
possible that he might still bealive, but I thought it probably
wasn't.
And it was really throughpeople like Velma Pollard and
Olive Senior and Mervyn Morrishelping me, like negotiating
(22:33):
with the Gleaner, and then theGleaner team, brilliant research
team, came up with thatobituary.
So I think you know, I guess insome ways the shape of the book
.
I could have chosen 25, 26writers I wanted to write about,
but I didn't want to do that.
Other contributors, you knowChris Campbell, Ronald Cummings,
(23:00):
Marta Fernandez-Camper, JoanneHillhouse, Evan O'Callaghan,
Jeremy Pointing, and, you know,Winston Minot, Nalini Mojabir
and Aaron McHattie.
In a way I wanted to kind ofsignal deliberately like nobody
does this work on their own.
We're all part of a scholarlycommunity and you know, there's
so many people whose work, whoseknowledge making, is in this
book.
I mean, I was just a luckyperson to put it all together,
(23:23):
but so many people, and I thinkthat's why it takes a long while
.
But you know, I'm hoping nowthat the network will expand
still, that people will hear oh,there's something about that
person.
And then you, you know, becausefor many of the writers we
don't know who their literaryestate is.
So we'd love to bring the workback into print, but without
(23:44):
that it's much harder.
So so it's been quiteunconventional because I've
tried to travel to the placeswhere the writers lived, or I've
traveled to relations.
Um, you know, I've beenswimming in, uh, you know, ponds
up in the Rupanuni I've beenswimming in.
You know, ponds up in theRupanuni, I've been doing, you
know, going through the archiveof Queen's College, which is
another history all of its own,and somebody should tell that
(24:07):
one.
You know coming across all ofthese, I guess, relics of the
colonial girls' school.
You know thinking about OliveSenior's poem and you know how
the archive interplays with that.
So it's been an amazing, uh,you know, adventure, um, and,
and really it's taken more thana village to bring this book to
(24:29):
reality I've shared um some ofmy favorite parts of this book.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I think you know it's also an experience, or it was
at least an experience for me,because Una Morrison is from my
family's parish, so I knew abouther, but I read about one of my
professor's fathers in thistext as well.
So there's, you know, I think,the interesting thing about this
text in a lot of ways.
(24:54):
But for me was, you know, theways that we can sort of build
these connections out forward,sort of you know, similarly to
what you were talking about insort of your archival research,
right.
But who, for you, were some ofthe most fascinating or
surprising people that you cameacross in doing this research?
Were there any that stood outfor either their unique stories
(25:17):
or literary contributions, ormaybe whose works challenged or
deeply impacted you know yourown understanding of early
Caribbean literature.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I think, in a way because one of the initial
impetus to do this work was thatidea that there were no women
at that time.
I think it really is the kindof women who stand out First of
all, just as the most remarkable, astonishing kind of human
beings.
When we read the literaryhistories, if they are commented
(25:49):
on, it's always like, oh, theirwork's a little hors d'oeuvre,
it's this kind of diminutivework, it's a short story rather
than a novel, or it's in thevernacular, you know.
And so I just wanted to be ableto show quite the opposite of
that.
These are enormouspersonalities, I mean, they're
(26:10):
really astonishing achievers.
So, as you said, vera Bell,this single mother of three
children, like going aroundJamaica taking all the names for
the first electoral roll youknow, being involved in the sort
of you know Caribbean childrenwho've migrated, I mean she's
(26:39):
really really remarkableachievements, as well as this
huge body of unpublished writingwhich is exciting to know about
.
And the same with someone likeMonica Skeet.
So she was having this veryrespectable career as a history
teacher at Queen's College inBarbados, which was really for
(27:00):
most of her time largely a verykind of white colonial
institution, and I think thisparallel life she had like she
went to work.
It doesn't seem that they everacknowledged her as a writer,
even though she published acollection of short stories with
Nelson in 1978, when she'd beenworking there for like 20 years
already or something and herwritings were infused by this
(27:23):
other life.
She'd grown up in a house withher father, james Martino, who
was part of the founding of theBarbados Workers' Union and
labor movement.
So I just think she had thiskind of life that it must have
been fascinating for her tojuggle that sensibility.
She had this writing which wasall about empowering women and
(27:46):
children to read their ownstrengths, and then she was
living this kind of other life,although her pupils say she
always like she taught themabout Cuba when Cuba was a dirty
word in Barbados and so therewas a radical in her.
There's nothing in theinstitutional record.
So I really would love to takeher stories back to Barbados and
(28:07):
see the children reading themthere.
But so I mean again, she wasanother kind of firebrand in
many ways.
And then Edwina Melville, whowas the first woman to have a
tractor license in Guyana, andyou know who lived under the
most kind of tremendouschallenges really, in the
Rupanuni writing, you know whena letter would take two weeks to
(28:29):
get back to the capital, andshe really dedicated herself to
representing Amerindian life.
And you know she learnedWapichand.
All of her stories are abouttrying to give voice to others.
And you know she also publishedand wrote a newspaper called
(28:50):
the Rupanini Review and shewould write all of it but she
always put people's names whenit was their story.
And she would write all of itbut she always put people's
names when it was their story.
So this idea of, like you know,being able to represent others,
and finally they became an MP, amember of parliament in Guyana,
again representing the sameregion, so this kind of, I guess
, kind of ethics of the work ofthese women as well, like very
(29:11):
much dedicated to representingwomen and children's lives.
So you know, they were justremarkable.
I mean Ada Quayle, who wasreally that was her fabulous pen
name but Kathleen Robinson, youknow, came to Britain during
(29:32):
the Battle of the Atlantic, Imean, you know she had tornadoes
and U-boats and everything toface and published a novel
published by the same publisheras Salvoin in 1958, reviewed by
Salvoin, disappeared from view,you know.
So I think, I guess I feel astrong sense of justice for
these women.
I want their names to be known.
I want their work to be read.
I want people never to sayagain you know, there were no
(29:54):
women publishing then.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is maybe my own sort of personal interest in
this, my next question.
But you know, from doingresearch myself and I think,
going through the experience andthe challenges and the you know
uphill battle oftentimes orsometimes it feels like a lonely
road and the process and youknow your relationship to
(30:22):
Caribbean literature and howit's evolved, certainly your
understanding by doing this work.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I learned remarkable patience.
I think of myself as a veryimpatient person, but I think
this, I really knew that thiswas worth waiting for.
So I'm glad that I realized Icould be patient and I think as
well.
Really, what I learned in thisbook more than any other was who
I was writing for, who I wantedthis work to reach.
(30:48):
So you know, I've published alot of, I guess, what within the
academy seems prestigious workwith big publishers like
Cambridge University Press, butthey charge so much that work
cannot be read.
It's not discoverable reallyoutside of the academy.
And I had not done all of thisresearch to call these writers'
(31:08):
names into an institution thathad already kind of proven it
wasn't interested.
You know, this book is for avery, very different audience.
I mean, I hope it's readable toanyone who picks it up and is
interested's.
I hope it's readable to anyonewho picks it up and is
interested and I hope it's therefor the pupils of these writers
, for the families and thefriends and, um, the people who
(31:30):
lived in the same places.
Um, and then I guess, as aresearcher, what I really struck
me was how fortunate I was tostart before the internet
because, like, discoverabilityis a really managed process.
You almost can't find what youdon't know because it always
(31:51):
replicates the same questionsfor you.
It tells you what you want toknow, it recommends oh I think
you mean this, or, and.
And I think that if I hadn'tstarted by just being in those
library stacks and thinking, wow, I never knew about that
publisher, like I never knew,and actually like none of that
still is discoverableelectronically, you know, it
(32:13):
still takes that patience.
So I would really really justrecommend people to just go back
into libraries, really justrecommend people to just go back
into libraries, talk tolibrarians, like really discover
.
I mean, librarians are suchhuge knowledge makers.
They carry so much of what wedon't know as scholars.
So I think you know that was areally big lesson for me to
(32:35):
realize that how lucky I'd be.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
That's you know so beautifully said, and I think,
at least what I think is, youknow, researchers a lot of hope
in having to navigate thesechallenges right.
That certainly you know.
I think we share that in termsof you know, impetus for doing
research, right, it's you knowto share collectively and not
just live within the sort of,you know, ivory tower in some
(33:00):
ways, and so I found certainlythis book to be one that I'd
recommend to certainly everybody.
I think that brings me to mynext question, which you know
strictly facts, family will know.
I'm always like what is the songor what is you know something
that points us in this direction?
And while that could certainlybe true I'm looking forward to
(33:21):
your answer I might also evenreally be asking what is, you
know, a great text that you cameacross from this, and this may
be difficult, right, becausesometimes they are, some of the
texts, as you noted, are alittle bit inaccessible based
off the varying dynamics.
But what is you know?
(33:41):
A text or a song or even a book, right?
A piece of work from one ofthese authors that you know, you
think is really effective inshowing us, you know, who we are
at this time in history throughour popular culture.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So I think, I mean I'm really heartened by the
recovery of Una Marson who, asyou said, is, you know, on the
same place as you, and I thinkthat the recovery of her work
shows us what is possible.
So there's an addition of herpoetry with Peopletree Press,
there's an addition of her playswith wonderful Blouse and Skirt
Press from Jamaica, and I thinkin all of that we still see the
(34:18):
cultural tensions that she'sworking through as somebody at
the mid-century but also like,as I said, the sort of resistant
consciousness of so many ofthese writers.
So, you know, she writes a playlike pockomania in 1938 in
jamaica, bringing, you know,drumming and singing and spirit
possession onto the stage ofwhat was otherwise a very
(34:40):
conservative world theater.
So you know, I think, likehaving access to her work now in
print is really, reallysignificant and that's been
picked up.
So the bbc did a biography, adocumentary about her, and
there's been biographies andthere's wonderful murals on um
crystal palace her, you know.
(35:00):
Hopefully that's a sense ofwhat can come for others.
The danger, of course, is thesense that she becomes the
representative and we don't needto do that for anybody else.
But I would love to seedocumentaries made about so many
of these other writers.
They all have reallyfascinating, remarkable lives.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Certainly, certainly, I agree.
I think, you know, even just inmy own research, going through
various libraries and actuallyit's most of the times just like
random bookstores and comingacross a text that, like you
know, on the outset it mightjust look like an old book,
right.
But when I've, you know, goneand Googled and, you know,
(35:41):
learned a little bit more aboutthe author, you know it becomes
a moment, I think, for me, right, and so similar to what you're
saying, right, if we sort ofpull our energies into doing
that sort of similar excavatingwork and can really help honor
the lives of these individualswho helped shape who we became,
(36:01):
especially leading into theindependence movements of this,
you know, 50s, 60s, movingforward.
I want to, you know, end alittle bit with our conversation
today with having you share alittle bit about this experience
.
How do you hope this book willinfluence not only Caribbean
(36:21):
literature but how it's taughtin schools?
You've mentioned it a littlebit, right, wanting it to see,
to see it in the hands of pupils.
But I think we're in an agewhere there is such a wealth
also of Caribbean literature, oflike contemporary Caribbean
literature, right, june has alsobecome Read Caribbean Month, in
addition to Caribbean AmericanHeritage Month.
(36:43):
So shout out to Book of Sinsthere who created that?
But what can we all really cometo understand differently about
the Caribbean through thesewriters, through their worldview
?
That, you know, wasn't thatlong ago in a lot of ways but,
you know, tells us somethingvery particular.
And how do you think theirworks speak to current social
(37:05):
and cultural issues in theCaribbean?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I mean, I think a lot of these works they draw on the
same cultural resources.
So they're drawing on both kindof, you know, questions of
power, of social injustice,working out who's seen, who's
not seen, who has a voice, whatkind of voice they have, and
also the kind of rich traditionsof all storytelling folklore.
(37:31):
A lot of them are very funny, alot of them are very moving in
terms of the kind of tenderinteractions that happen, you
know.
Um, so they're very intimatestories, I think of between
parents and children.
Um, you know very much aboutwhat it is to remain connected
(37:57):
when you go through socialchange.
So so you know, that wholequestion of people being
educated away from where, ortheir feeling of detachment from
where they were, I mean,there's some really amazing
stories, I think, that readbeautifully alongside our
contemporary writers in bringingup kind of like you know I mean
(38:17):
voices of a Caribbean past.
These embed those voices, Ithink.
So in some ways they are theresource upon which some of our
contemporary writers have drawnas well, not knowingly, and
that's a beautiful thing.
So I've noticed how many of thecontemporary writers,
particularly women writers, whowere told they had no literary
ancestors, are like wow, hereare my literary ancestors.
(38:40):
This is the tradition that Iwas writing in.
You know, when I read some ofthe work by Gloria Scoffrey, you
know I see sort of LornaGoodison in my mind, and you
know Vera Bell, you know OliveSenior.
I mean it's really really clearto me.
So I think there's a realcontinuity there.
I mean, obviously, you know,different questions are at the
(39:04):
forefront now.
I think that those aroundsexuality that are really
prominent and, you know, a realkind of area of fascination for
contemporary writers in tryingto kind of carry on a liberation
program.
I guess in many ways, I guessin many ways many of those are
not that present, althoughactually Oscar OR Daythorne's
(39:24):
work in Guyana is reallyinteresting in that regard.
His novel the Scholar man hasgot lots of kind of queer
imaginings in.
It can be read reallybrilliantly alongside Sulfur's
Escape from Norton Pavement.
You know, going up through thattradition of writers that we now
kind of acknowledge within acontemporary period, I guess, in
(39:48):
terms of what has remained thesame, I think there's still kind
of challenges for writers whoare writing within the region
compared to those inmetropolitan centers.
So I already gave a shout outto Blouse and Skirt centers.
So I already gave a shout outto blouse and skirt and you know
I think that that tanya batsand savage has done amazing work
as a publisher but generallypublishing houses, you know it's
(40:09):
quite hard within the caribbeanbooksellers.
You know, again, paper-basedbooks in trinidad fabulous.
But you know it's been quitehard to get this book into
bookshops in Jamaica,no-transcript.
(40:51):
But I think there is still thatsort of sense, I guess, of the
making of the writer um beingsort of pulled towards that
metropolitan center.
So it would be fabulous to seemore kind of resourcing and
infrastructure happening forthose writers who are writing
from Caribbean spaces.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Certainly, certainly.
I just want to tremendouslythank you, alistair, for joining
us.
I mean, this was such a funread for me, in a lot of ways
right, and so I cannot recommendit anymore.
So for our listeners who areinterested in just learning
about a broad range of Caribbeanwriters who lived many lives
(41:31):
right, as we've noted in ourpodcast today, be sure to check
out Lost and Found, an A to Z ofneglected writers of the
Anglophone Caribbean, and wemean Anglophone in a very broad
way.
Right, Belize is included, allof so you know, it's not just
four places or anything likethat.
Be sure to check it out.
I will link it in our shownotes.
(41:51):
Special thank you again to you,allison, and to Polly Patello of
Papalote Press for sharing acopy with me so we could have
this discussion.
And you know, as always, wehope you enjoyed listening to
this episode.
Feel free to let us know ifyou've grabbed a copy.
And, you know, let us know whatyou enjoyed, what you learned
from the text as well.
(42:11):
And till next time, little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
Visit strictlyfactspodcastcomfor more information from each
episode.
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strictlyfaxpd on Twitter.
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture hosted by me, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello, hello, everyone, andwelcome to another episode of
(00:23):
Strictly Facts, a guide toCaribbean history and culture,
where one of our essentialmissions is really understanding
the complex layers of ourcollective identity and
resilience.
Today we are turning our focus,in the ways of you know who we
are, into one of the most vitalaspects of our cultural heritage
(00:43):
, and that is in Caribbeanliterature.
Literary history is central tounderstanding the Caribbean's
past and present in many ways,and even future.
The written word has long beena tool of resistance, cultural
preservation, expression.
I could go on and on, but youknow, I think when we really
understand some of the writingsthat came out of the 20th
(01:05):
century in particular, that'swhere we really begin to
underscore Caribbean writers.
And you know how they begantheir craft to tell stories of
who they are, their experiences,and you know, particularly in
the face of colonialism andpost-colonial challenges,
(01:26):
colonial challenges.
And so, with us to extend thatconversation out a little bit
further before I get a littlebit ahead of myself, we are
joined by Head of Humanities andProfessor of Modern Literatures
in English at the University ofBristol, alison Donnell, whose
new book Lost and Found in A toZ of Neglected Writers of the
Anglophone Caribbean offers anexciting new lens through which
to view Caribbean literaryhistory.
(01:46):
By bringing attention towriters who have often been
overshadowed or excluded fromthe traditional canon, this book
really opens up new avenues forunderstanding Caribbean
creatives and literary activistswhose works shaped and you know
, and sometimes should haveshaped more increasingly the
cultural landscape in ways thathave not always been fully
(02:09):
recognized.
So, alison, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Before we get into the book,why don't you share a little bit
with our listeners?
You know your love forCaribbean literature and you
know your connection to theregion.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely so.
My connection to Caribbeanliterature began really in the
1980s, a long time ago, when Iwas studying for a degree in
English literature and I wasvery much committed to feminist
and anti-racist movements at thetime and engaged in those, and
I had a commitment to educatemyself if I wanted, you know, to
(02:46):
see this transformation interms of what we understand,
where we understand from and howto combat the structures that
were really still pervasive,very deeply pervasive, in the
academy then.
And so I was so fortunate thatI took a course in Caribbean
literature, taught by an amazingGuyanese academic called
Michael Jokes, and really thatwas it.
(03:08):
From that moment I just becamekind of ignited, everything
emotionally, intellectually, bythis amazing body of work that
was so exciting, both in itspolitical ambitions and in its
creative energies.
Both in its political ambitionsand in its creative energies
and I guess I was, you know itreally struck me that the world
(03:30):
had met in the Caribbean in themost violent way, cultures had
encountered each other in themost violent way, and yet the
writers were really there to atthis time of, I guess, like
people making projects,imagining in the aftermath of
that.
How do we all learn to occupythis space together?
(03:52):
How do we relate to each other?
How do we relate to the worldaround us?
And the social complexity, Iguess, of those stories and yet
the clarity with which theyarticulated kind of subjecthood
was really dazzling to me.
And that was it.
So I was hooked.
I took a PhD, and I think it wasreally when I took my PhD, and
(04:13):
my PhD was in women's writing,because I hadn't really been
taught much women's writing andI've been told as an
undergraduate that the womenweren't really writing till
later and everything in me waslike nah, nah, it's just not
true, I agree.
So I just.
Also it was slightlybewildering that you know, you
(04:35):
suddenly have given money tojust do what you want in your
own time, and that freaked meout a bit.
So I spent my time in thelibrary and I was really
fortunate that there was a bigcenter for Caribbean studies at
the University of Warwick soamazing primary resources and I
just literally nobody was upthere.
So I had a little piece ofpaper that was my bookshelf
(04:55):
bookmark and I would just takeoff like 10 volumes and read
them and go back the next day,take off another 10.
Make up another 10.
And I think I've just began torealize that there was this huge
body of writing that I hadn'tencountered, not only in the
work that I'd studied as anundergraduate but in the
critical writings that I'dstudied.
So I felt like the scale of thefield and the texture of the
(05:20):
field had just not beenrepresented, and that was where
I felt most excited to try andcontribute to that work.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And I think that's something you know, having read
Lost and Bound, that Itremendously see in this text as
well, and so I gave a littlebit of a preview.
But do you want to share alittle bit more about your
vision behind you know, thiscomposition, this edited
collection, what inspired you tocreate the collection and
perhaps what drew you to thisparticular project, having, you
(05:50):
know, gone from an undergrad andgrad student who opened
yourself up into understandingCaribbean literature to you know
there are layers to the to, I'msure, your journey in academia.
So you know what, what sort of,drew you to this project at
this time.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So I think I've been doing this really slow research
for a long time and I've beenvery aware that it wasn't really
an area.
So I was never able to publishmy PhD, which was on Jamaican
women writers before 1950.
There wasn't really an interestin that.
There was a kind of perception,I guess, that it was entangled
in the colonial past and itwasn't really where attention
(06:28):
was at the time.
And I mean I can understandthat there were so many
brilliant contemporary womenwriters publishing and I was
writing on them as well.
But I always had this idea thatthe long history was worth
telling, the deep history wasworth telling and I just
acquired as many sources as Icould over time.
So I would photocopy things Iwould you know.
(06:49):
Whenever I could, I would buyit, and I mean booksellers,
secondhand booksellers have alot of credit in this book.
You know who?
People who say to me I hadfound this volume, do you want
it?
So it took a long time, I guess, to build up a library.
So the Pioneer Press in Jamaicawas a really important press
publishing in the 1950s from theGleaner newspaper.
(07:10):
But we don't even have adefinitive list of the titles
published by that press.
So every one I bought, I wouldgo to the back and see what
other titles it listed did.
And so I have all of these kindof boring, nerdy spreadsheets
about trying to work out, likehow many books were published in
this list, what did thispublisher do, what did this
writer do?
And I could have probably goneon like that forever.
(07:33):
But I got some really majorfunding from the Leverhulme
Trust to have a project onCaribbean literary heritage, and
the website is literallywwwcaribbeanliteraryheritagecom,
and we made all kinds ofresources the project team who
were key to this including awonderful resource to find the
archives of Caribbean writersdeveloped by Marta
(07:56):
Fernandez-Kemper and we weredoing this research during 2019.
And then something happened in2019.
I had the global pandemic andour access to archives that we
planned.
I had a kind of open suitcasefor months, just looked at it.
I was bound to Jamaica andnever made that trip, and so I
(08:18):
suddenly thought, well, what Ido have for all of these books?
And, like most bibliophiles, Icollected more books than I'd
ever read.
So I started just giving myselfthe discipline of taking down
one of the writers, reading oneof the books and writing a
Facebook post about it, and sothe whole A to Z started that
(08:38):
way and I was really amazed byhow historians and other
contemporary writers had neverheard of these writers and were
interested and excited by them.
So I realized really that mysense that there was this very
narrow canon was not wrong.
It wasn't just in the academythat these writers had been lost
(08:58):
.
They've been lost moregenerally to readers and
interested publics.
And then the wonderful PollyPetillo from Papiuk Press
approached me and said, howabout publishing that A to Z?
And I think she probablythought it would be quite a
short book because the entrieswere quite short on Facebook.
But that's when the professor inme kicked in, I think, and I
(09:20):
realized that one of the thingsthat had really struck me when
I'd been looking for thesewriters was very often like a
writer, like Vera Bell.
Her poem Ancestor on theauction block is anthologized in
very many places, but if you goto the author bibliographies
either she's missing or it justsays a writer from Jamaica.
(09:40):
And I had this really keensense that I couldn't represent
these writers without knowingwho they were.
So the biographical researchbecame a really important part
of this project and some of themost challenging aspect of it as
well and some of the writerswho were in there.
There's still not that much oftheir life I've been able to
(10:01):
tell.
But I'm hoping that publishingthis will act as a catalyst and
everyone will say, hey, shedidn't know that about Claude
Thompson from Jamaica, and thenthey'll come forward.
So the same with thebibliography.
So it became a much morescholarly book because I felt
like I'm at the stage now of mycareer where I cannot write
about all of these writers inthis book, but they all need to
(10:24):
be written about, and far morestill.
So if I could go through thenewspaper libraries, if I could
go through all thebibliographers and do my very
best to give scholars who arevery, very time poor today and
whom the career demands of beingin the academy are very
pressured, if I could give thema kind of foothold to do this
(10:46):
sort of archival research, myhope was that these writers will
be more fully recovered.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Thank you for that introduction.
First of all, I think thatunderscores, you know, just what
, to me, was just such a veryimpressive collection.
Because I think sometimes whenwe think of particular texts,
right, we think of the momentthat they were published.
We think of particular texts,right, we think of the moment
that they were published and ofcourse we don't always think of
the lives in which the authorsled or you know, their, their
(11:14):
experiences, that evenmanifested in these texts a lot
of times.
Um, and you also brought up thecanon of Caribbean literature,
which brings me to sort of to mynext question, in that from
reading it I was glad that Iwasn't sort of alone as somebody
who loves Caribbean literaturebut is not, you know, in the
(11:34):
sort of English disciplineformally.
Figures of Caribbean literaturewho sort of kicked off or were
the catalyst of Caribbeanliterature, particularly in the
20th century, come from thissort of 1950s moment, you know,
of migrations, of windrush, etc.
(11:56):
Right Moving particularly toEurope, to the UK, and then
really, you know, helping toconcentrate in what becomes
known as this Caribbeanliterature canon, and in a lot
of ways this text debunks thatright.
It helps to really underscorethat.
You know, our canon is notnecessarily traditionally only
(12:18):
male, that it also wasn't justor didn't really start in the
1950s.
There are just a lot of thingsthat I think this text
complicates.
And so, whether that's timeperiod, as I said, gender,
ethnicity, as well as somethingthat I was blown to here, just
because you know it takes us onmultiple routes, whether that's,
(12:39):
you know, the impact ofIndo-Caribbean writers, of
multiracial Caribbean writers,etc.
And so in what ways do youthink the traditional canon has
limited our understanding of ourCaribbean literary history?
And, you know, certainly, inwhat ways have some of the
writers that you brought tolight through this text helped
to reshape that?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, thanks, that's a great question.
I mean I think in very manyways.
Yeah, thanks, that's a greatquestion.
(13:25):
I mean I think in very manyways.
But perhaps to summarize, Ithink genre, absolutely.
So I you know the shaping ofgenre and our idea of the novel
being this, the form of givingconsciousness to West Indian
literature, I think is shaped byexternal forces.
So genre, because really theshort story in very, very many
(13:48):
ways was a form that wasdominant and prevalent at this
time.
Definitely, gender, you know, asI said, you know I could find
no women really of this periodwhen I was studying and
subsequently I found like fouror five anthologies of Caribbean
literature were published inthe 1960s, edited by Andrew
(14:08):
Sulkey.
You know really great people.
Not a single one of them has aCaribbean-born woman writer in
them.
So gender was reallysignificant.
And location, I think so, as yousaid, it might have been Ken
Ramchand who said that Londonwas the literary capital of the
Caribbean at this time, but thatnotion really that the making
(14:33):
of the professional writer andmigration went together, that
you couldn't really be a writerin the Caribbean.
So I think we miss the writersin the Caribbean because of that
idea.
And then I guess finallyaudience because of that idea
and then I guess finallyaudience.
So this notion that you'rereally a writer if you write to
the major publishing houses tobe reviewed by all the literary
(14:54):
press in London and you'rewriting for kind of a literary
readership, because very many ofthe writers that I have found
they they were storytelling anda lot of those stories were for
children and they wanted thosestories to be imprint because
they wanted Caribbean classroomsto have material of a Caribbean
nature and I guess, in terms ofwhat I found was absolutely a
(15:27):
lot of the women were writingfor very particular sort of
communities.
So you know someone like EulaRedhead who had nine of her
stories broadcast on what wasseen as the sort of literary
platform of the mid-century, theCaribbean Voices Radio
Programme.
She's really writing veryspecifically about Grenadian
folklore and you know she'swriting for a program that was
broadcast back in the Caribbean.
It had to go via London butthat's where it was.
(15:49):
And so I think you know someonelike Edwina Melville who's
writing very, very specificallyto bring the Rupanuni in Guyana
to life and the lives of thepeople there.
So I think that that idea thatwriting was part of this huge
project of building Caribbeancultural literacy, you know, and
(16:10):
very many of these people werecommitted teachers in their
professional lives as well.
So this kind of mission ofcreating a body of work through
which an education system couldbe transformed, through which
people's reading materials andreading of themselves could be
transformed, I guess thatshaping of the nation at home, I
think we really missed.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
That is a tremendous point, I think.
In many ways, right, I'mcaptivated, as you've pointed us
, to the writers taking it uponthemselves to really shape what
is Caribbean history, Caribbeannationalism, etc.
The work that they do and thedifficulties with being just a
(16:55):
writer, right, it's somethingthat, as you pointed to, was
potentially much more feasibleonce you know you migrated.
But many of these writers whowere Caribbean-born in this text
had several other jobs, right,which I found amazing, when I
don't want to give too manypeople away from the text, but
(17:15):
just the wealth of work thatthey were doing in addition to
writing some of these texts.
And so could you maybe share alittle bit more about how, upon
doing this research, younavigated, understanding, you
know, the multiple roles andjobs that these people took up
in addition to their careers aswriters, as authors, as poets,
(17:35):
etc in addition to their careersas writers, as authors, as
poets, etc.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yes, absolutely.
So I think that, again, thiskind of sense of who we held on
to as a writer, I think was todo with this making of
professional authorship, whokind of promoted themselves as a
writer as well as who actuallywas writing.
And there was a sense, I think,amongst the writers who were
based in the Caribbean, that itwas their writings that mattered
rather than their identity as awriter.
So they were journalists aswell, they were teachers very
(18:07):
often, but they were also likein the commercial world.
They were sometimes homemakers.
Really, what mattered was theirwriting.
So that's what they werecommitted to seeing their
writings into the world.
So I guess what I mean by thatwas somebody who wants to be a
professional writer, wantedcommercial return, they wanted
(18:29):
to be able, their writingsneeded to be commercially viable
, and so the ones who wereactually writing at home in a
way were able to write that wasfree from that expectation, free
from the marketplace.
So I had the sense really thattheir sense of who they were
(18:49):
writing for was much stronger,because they weren't interested
in metropolitan approval in thesame way.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, I ask that because you know, reading purely
, you know, one of the peopleoff the top of my head was
reading about Vera Bell andlearning that, you know, she was
the first female chief clerk ofthe National Water Commission
in Jamaica, right.
And so that is a story withinitself that I hope somebody
underscores, right, and so thatis a story within itself that I
hope somebody underscores Right.
But to think that, you know, ontop of that feat, she did so
many other things within hercareer as a writer, as you point
to, and so these are just youknow, several reasons why maybe
(19:28):
my nerdy historian self wasgushing over this text.
Yeah, you sort of mentioned, oralluded to a little bit earlier
the difficulties with sort of,you know, having to navigate,
finding these biographies ofthese writers, and so what was
that experience like?
What were some of thechallenges that you faced while
(19:50):
researching these lesser-knownCaribbean writers and their
works, and sort of how did yougo about recovering and
documenting their literarycontributions?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Thinking about traditional research first.
So even some of those sourcesare very scarce.
You know a lot of newspapers,for example, haven't been
digitized or incomplete in theirruns and a lot of them have
suffered from the impact ofclimate.
You know, they literally areperishing as you see them.
And then a lot of the writerswho publish books would have had
(20:22):
very limited print runs.
So it's quite possible thatsome of the volumes, like
Barbara Jones's Among thePotatoes possibly there were
only ever 50 copies printed andshe gave them away to people who
were important to her.
So to find one of those isreally rare now, and obviously
because Caribbean lives are verydiasporic lives, papers travel
(20:44):
and things become kind ofdetached from each other or
scattered.
And then I guess mostexcitingly but also difficult to
access, is the fact that Ialways thought they're not lost,
they're just unfound, like if Ican find them, and so many of
the papers are still in familyhands.
(21:05):
So so many importantmanuscripts are still being held
by families and that's great,but it also means that they're
not open for researchers really.
So we need to be thinking.
You know, collectively, what todo about that.
But in terms of the sleuthingaspect of it, because I found
these papers in Canada, in theUS, in Spain, in the UK.
(21:25):
So I joke that I have aliterary detective agency and
that everybody I know is part ofit, but it's not really a joke.
So you know, as I said, I'vekind of kept these names and
added whenever I could.
But I also put out adverts innewspapers.
You know, I put out an advertin the newspaper in Barbados for
(21:48):
Monica Skeet, the writer, andthat was really productive.
I put out a TV advert inGrenada for Eula Redhead, and so
I was was aware that, you know,I needed to reach people who
may actually be very elderlythemselves now, who would know
these writers.
And I guess also, just, I'vebeen so fortunate to work with a
(22:11):
community of other interestedscholars.
So at the very end, when I wastrying to finish the book, I
couldn't find an obituary for WGOgilvie and it was just about
possible that he might still bealive, but I thought it probably
wasn't.
And it was really throughpeople like Velma Pollard and
Olive Senior and Mervyn Morrishelping me, like negotiating
(22:33):
with the Gleaner, and then theGleaner team, brilliant research
team, came up with thatobituary.
So I think you know, I guess insome ways the shape of the book
.
I could have chosen 25, 26writers I wanted to write about,
but I didn't want to do that.
Other contributors, you knowChris Campbell, Ronald Cummings,
(23:00):
Marta Fernandez-Camper, JoanneHillhouse, Evan O'Callaghan,
Jeremy Pointing, and, you know,Winston Minot, Nalini Mojabir
and Aaron McHattie.
In a way I wanted to kind ofsignal deliberately like nobody
does this work on their own.
We're all part of a scholarlycommunity and you know, there's
so many people whose work, whoseknowledge making, is in this
book.
I mean, I was just a luckyperson to put it all together,
(23:23):
but so many people, and I thinkthat's why it takes a long while
.
But you know, I'm hoping nowthat the network will expand
still, that people will hear oh,there's something about that
person.
And then you, you know, becausefor many of the writers we
don't know who their literaryestate is.
So we'd love to bring the workback into print, but without
(23:44):
that it's much harder.
So so it's been quiteunconventional because I've
tried to travel to the placeswhere the writers lived, or I've
traveled to relations.
Um, you know, I've beenswimming in, uh, you know, ponds
up in the Rupanuni I've beenswimming in.
You know, ponds up in theRupanuni, I've been doing, you
know, going through the archiveof Queen's College, which is
another history all of its own,and somebody should tell that
(24:07):
one.
You know coming across all ofthese, I guess, relics of the
colonial girls' school.
You know thinking about OliveSenior's poem and you know how
the archive interplays with that.
So it's been an amazing, uh,you know, adventure, um, and,
and really it's taken more thana village to bring this book to
(24:29):
reality I've shared um some ofmy favorite parts of this book.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I think you know it's also an experience, or it was
at least an experience for me,because Una Morrison is from my
family's parish, so I knew abouther, but I read about one of my
professor's fathers in thistext as well.
So there's, you know, I think,the interesting thing about this
text in a lot of ways.
(24:54):
But for me was, you know, theways that we can sort of build
these connections out forward,sort of you know, similarly to
what you were talking about insort of your archival research,
right.
But who, for you, were some ofthe most fascinating or
surprising people that you cameacross in doing this research?
Were there any that stood outfor either their unique stories
(25:17):
or literary contributions, ormaybe whose works challenged or
deeply impacted you know yourown understanding of early
Caribbean literature.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I think, in a way because one of the initial
impetus to do this work was thatidea that there were no women
at that time.
I think it really is the kindof women who stand out First of
all, just as the most remarkable, astonishing kind of human
beings.
When we read the literaryhistories, if they are commented
(25:49):
on, it's always like, oh, theirwork's a little hors d'oeuvre,
it's this kind of diminutivework, it's a short story rather
than a novel, or it's in thevernacular, you know.
And so I just wanted to be ableto show quite the opposite of
that.
These are enormouspersonalities, I mean, they're
(26:10):
really astonishing achievers.
So, as you said, vera Bell,this single mother of three
children, like going aroundJamaica taking all the names for
the first electoral roll youknow, being involved in the sort
of you know Caribbean childrenwho've migrated, I mean she's
(26:39):
really really remarkableachievements, as well as this
huge body of unpublished writingwhich is exciting to know about
.
And the same with someone likeMonica Skeet.
So she was having this veryrespectable career as a history
teacher at Queen's College inBarbados, which was really for
(27:00):
most of her time largely a verykind of white colonial
institution, and I think thisparallel life she had like she
went to work.
It doesn't seem that they everacknowledged her as a writer,
even though she published acollection of short stories with
Nelson in 1978, when she'd beenworking there for like 20 years
already or something and herwritings were infused by this
(27:23):
other life.
She'd grown up in a house withher father, james Martino, who
was part of the founding of theBarbados Workers' Union and
labor movement.
So I just think she had thiskind of life that it must have
been fascinating for her tojuggle that sensibility.
She had this writing which wasall about empowering women and
(27:46):
children to read their ownstrengths, and then she was
living this kind of other life,although her pupils say she
always like she taught themabout Cuba when Cuba was a dirty
word in Barbados and so therewas a radical in her.
There's nothing in theinstitutional record.
So I really would love to takeher stories back to Barbados and
(28:07):
see the children reading themthere.
But so I mean again, she wasanother kind of firebrand in
many ways.
And then Edwina Melville, whowas the first woman to have a
tractor license in Guyana, andyou know who lived under the
most kind of tremendouschallenges really, in the
Rupanuni writing, you know whena letter would take two weeks to
(28:29):
get back to the capital, andshe really dedicated herself to
representing Amerindian life.
And you know she learnedWapichand.
All of her stories are abouttrying to give voice to others.
And you know she also publishedand wrote a newspaper called
(28:50):
the Rupanini Review and shewould write all of it but she
always put people's names whenit was their story.
And she would write all of itbut she always put people's
names when it was their story.
So this idea of, like you know,being able to represent others,
and finally they became an MP, amember of parliament in Guyana,
again representing the sameregion, so this kind of, I guess
, kind of ethics of the work ofthese women as well, like very
(29:11):
much dedicated to representingwomen and children's lives.
So you know, they were justremarkable.
I mean Ada Quayle, who wasreally that was her fabulous pen
name but Kathleen Robinson, youknow, came to Britain during
(29:32):
the Battle of the Atlantic, Imean, you know she had tornadoes
and U-boats and everything toface and published a novel
published by the same publisheras Salvoin in 1958, reviewed by
Salvoin, disappeared from view,you know.
So I think, I guess I feel astrong sense of justice for
these women.
I want their names to be known.
I want their work to be read.
I want people never to sayagain you know, there were no
(29:54):
women publishing then.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is maybe my own sort of personal interest in
this, my next question.
But you know, from doingresearch myself and I think,
going through the experience andthe challenges and the you know
uphill battle oftentimes orsometimes it feels like a lonely
road and the process and youknow your relationship to
(30:22):
Caribbean literature and howit's evolved, certainly your
understanding by doing this work.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I learned remarkable patience.
I think of myself as a veryimpatient person, but I think
this, I really knew that thiswas worth waiting for.
So I'm glad that I realized Icould be patient and I think as
well.
Really, what I learned in thisbook more than any other was who
I was writing for, who I wantedthis work to reach.
(30:48):
So you know, I've published alot of, I guess, what within the
academy seems prestigious workwith big publishers like
Cambridge University Press, butthey charge so much that work
cannot be read.
It's not discoverable reallyoutside of the academy.
And I had not done all of thisresearch to call these writers'
(31:08):
names into an institution thathad already kind of proven it
wasn't interested.
You know, this book is for avery, very different audience.
I mean, I hope it's readable toanyone who picks it up and is
interested's.
I hope it's readable to anyonewho picks it up and is
interested and I hope it's therefor the pupils of these writers
, for the families and thefriends and, um, the people who
(31:30):
lived in the same places.
Um, and then I guess, as aresearcher, what I really struck
me was how fortunate I was tostart before the internet
because, like, discoverabilityis a really managed process.
You almost can't find what youdon't know because it always
(31:51):
replicates the same questionsfor you.
It tells you what you want toknow, it recommends oh I think
you mean this, or, and.
And I think that if I hadn'tstarted by just being in those
library stacks and thinking, wow, I never knew about that
publisher, like I never knew,and actually like none of that
still is discoverableelectronically, you know, it
(32:13):
still takes that patience.
So I would really really justrecommend people to just go back
into libraries, really justrecommend people to just go back
into libraries, talk tolibrarians, like really discover
.
I mean, librarians are suchhuge knowledge makers.
They carry so much of what wedon't know as scholars.
So I think you know that was areally big lesson for me to
(32:35):
realize that how lucky I'd be.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
That's you know so beautifully said, and I think,
at least what I think is, youknow, researchers a lot of hope
in having to navigate thesechallenges right.
That certainly you know.
I think we share that in termsof you know, impetus for doing
research, right, it's you knowto share collectively and not
just live within the sort of,you know, ivory tower in some
(33:00):
ways, and so I found certainlythis book to be one that I'd
recommend to certainly everybody.
I think that brings me to mynext question, which you know
strictly facts, family will know.
I'm always like what is the songor what is you know something
that points us in this direction?
And while that could certainlybe true I'm looking forward to
(33:21):
your answer I might also evenreally be asking what is, you
know, a great text that you cameacross from this, and this may
be difficult, right, becausesometimes they are, some of the
texts, as you noted, are alittle bit inaccessible based
off the varying dynamics.
But what is you know?
(33:41):
A text or a song or even a book, right?
A piece of work from one ofthese authors that you know, you
think is really effective inshowing us, you know, who we are
at this time in history throughour popular culture.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
So I think, I mean I'm really heartened by the
recovery of Una Marson who, asyou said, is, you know, on the
same place as you, and I thinkthat the recovery of her work
shows us what is possible.
So there's an addition of herpoetry with Peopletree Press,
there's an addition of her playswith wonderful Blouse and Skirt
Press from Jamaica, and I thinkin all of that we still see the
(34:18):
cultural tensions that she'sworking through as somebody at
the mid-century but also like,as I said, the sort of resistant
consciousness of so many ofthese writers.
So, you know, she writes a playlike pockomania in 1938 in
jamaica, bringing, you know,drumming and singing and spirit
possession onto the stage ofwhat was otherwise a very
(34:40):
conservative world theater.
So you know, I think, likehaving access to her work now in
print is really, reallysignificant and that's been
picked up.
So the bbc did a biography, adocumentary about her, and
there's been biographies andthere's wonderful murals on um
crystal palace her, you know.
(35:00):
Hopefully that's a sense ofwhat can come for others.
The danger, of course, is thesense that she becomes the
representative and we don't needto do that for anybody else.
But I would love to seedocumentaries made about so many
of these other writers.
They all have reallyfascinating, remarkable lives.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Certainly, certainly, I agree.
I think, you know, even just inmy own research, going through
various libraries and actuallyit's most of the times just like
random bookstores and comingacross a text that, like you
know, on the outset it mightjust look like an old book,
right.
But when I've, you know, goneand Googled and, you know,
(35:41):
learned a little bit more aboutthe author, you know it becomes
a moment, I think, for me, right, and so similar to what you're
saying, right, if we sort ofpull our energies into doing
that sort of similar excavatingwork and can really help honor
the lives of these individualswho helped shape who we became,
(36:01):
especially leading into theindependence movements of this,
you know, 50s, 60s, movingforward.
I want to, you know, end alittle bit with our conversation
today with having you share alittle bit about this experience
.
How do you hope this book willinfluence not only Caribbean
(36:21):
literature but how it's taughtin schools?
You've mentioned it a littlebit, right, wanting it to see,
to see it in the hands of pupils.
But I think we're in an agewhere there is such a wealth
also of Caribbean literature, oflike contemporary Caribbean
literature, right, june has alsobecome Read Caribbean Month, in
addition to Caribbean AmericanHeritage Month.
(36:43):
So shout out to Book of Sinsthere who created that?
But what can we all really cometo understand differently about
the Caribbean through thesewriters, through their worldview
?
That, you know, wasn't thatlong ago in a lot of ways but,
you know, tells us somethingvery particular.
And how do you think theirworks speak to current social
(37:05):
and cultural issues in theCaribbean?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I mean, I think a lot of these works they draw on the
same cultural resources.
So they're drawing on both kindof, you know, questions of
power, of social injustice,working out who's seen, who's
not seen, who has a voice, whatkind of voice they have, and
also the kind of rich traditionsof all storytelling folklore.
(37:31):
A lot of them are very funny, alot of them are very moving in
terms of the kind of tenderinteractions that happen, you
know.
Um, so they're very intimatestories, I think of between
parents and children.
Um, you know very much aboutwhat it is to remain connected
(37:57):
when you go through socialchange.
So so you know, that wholequestion of people being
educated away from where, ortheir feeling of detachment from
where they were, I mean,there's some really amazing
stories, I think, that readbeautifully alongside our
contemporary writers in bringingup kind of like you know I mean
(38:17):
voices of a Caribbean past.
These embed those voices, Ithink.
So in some ways they are theresource upon which some of our
contemporary writers have drawnas well, not knowingly, and
that's a beautiful thing.
So I've noticed how many of thecontemporary writers,
particularly women writers, whowere told they had no literary
ancestors, are like wow, hereare my literary ancestors.
(38:40):
This is the tradition that Iwas writing in.
You know, when I read some ofthe work by Gloria Scoffrey, you
know I see sort of LornaGoodison in my mind, and you
know Vera Bell, you know OliveSenior.
I mean it's really really clearto me.
So I think there's a realcontinuity there.
I mean, obviously, you know,different questions are at the
(39:04):
forefront now.
I think that those aroundsexuality that are really
prominent and, you know, a realkind of area of fascination for
contemporary writers in tryingto kind of carry on a liberation
program.
I guess in many ways, I guessin many ways many of those are
not that present, althoughactually Oscar OR Daythorne's
(39:24):
work in Guyana is reallyinteresting in that regard.
His novel the Scholar man hasgot lots of kind of queer
imaginings in.
It can be read reallybrilliantly alongside Sulfur's
Escape from Norton Pavement.
You know, going up through thattradition of writers that we now
kind of acknowledge within acontemporary period, I guess, in
(39:48):
terms of what has remained thesame, I think there's still kind
of challenges for writers whoare writing within the region
compared to those inmetropolitan centers.
So I already gave a shout outto Blouse and Skirt centers.
So I already gave a shout outto blouse and skirt and you know
I think that that tanya batsand savage has done amazing work
as a publisher but generallypublishing houses, you know it's
(40:09):
quite hard within the caribbeanbooksellers.
You know, again, paper-basedbooks in trinidad fabulous.
But you know it's been quitehard to get this book into
bookshops in Jamaica,no-transcript.
(40:51):
But I think there is still thatsort of sense, I guess, of the
making of the writer um beingsort of pulled towards that
metropolitan center.
So it would be fabulous to seemore kind of resourcing and
infrastructure happening forthose writers who are writing
from Caribbean spaces.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Certainly, certainly.
I just want to tremendouslythank you, alistair, for joining
us.
I mean, this was such a funread for me, in a lot of ways
right, and so I cannot recommendit anymore.
So for our listeners who areinterested in just learning
about a broad range of Caribbeanwriters who lived many lives
(41:31):
right, as we've noted in ourpodcast today, be sure to check
out Lost and Found, an A to Z ofneglected writers of the
Anglophone Caribbean, and wemean Anglophone in a very broad
way.
Right, Belize is included, allof so you know, it's not just
four places or anything likethat.
Be sure to check it out.
I will link it in our shownotes.
(41:51):
Special thank you again to you,allison, and to Polly Patello of
Papalote Press for sharing acopy with me so we could have
this discussion.
And you know, as always, wehope you enjoyed listening to
this episode.
Feel free to let us know ifyou've grabbed a copy.
And, you know, let us know whatyou enjoyed, what you learned
from the text as well.
(42:11):
And till next time, little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
Visit strictlyfactspodcastcomfor more information from each
episode.
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