- Kamau Brathwaite
Edward Kamau Brathwaite (born
May 11 ,1930 ) is one of the major voices in theCaribbean literary canon. Brathwaite is the 2006 International Winner of the Sixth Annual Griffin Poetry Prize.Facts|date=January 2008 His recent volume of poetry, "Born to Slow Horses", was the work recognized for the Griffin Poetry Prize.A holder of a Ph.D. from the
University of Sussex and co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), Brathwaite's name is seminal for a literary critic, scholar, or student concerned with Caribbean Literature, History and Culture. He has received both theGuggenheim andFulbright Fellowships, to cite only two of many other notable fellowships. Winner of theNeustadt International Prize for Literature , theBussa Award , theCasa de las Américas Prize , and the Charity Randall Prize for Performance and Written Poetry, Brathwaite has painstakingly established himself as a tour-de-force in not only the literary arts arena but also in the arena of historical and cultural studies.Brathwaite is noted for his studies of Black cultural life both in Africa and throughout the African
diaspora s 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".Biography
Kamau Brathwaite was born Lawson Edward Brathwaite, May 11, 1930 in the capital city of
Barbados ,Bridgetown . In 1945 he attended school at the Harrison College in Barbados and in 1949 he won the Barbados Scholarship and attendedCambridge University . In 1953, Brathwaite went on to receive an honors B.A. at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and he also began his association with theBBC 's Caribbean Voices Program in London. In 1954, he received a Diploma of Education from Pembroke College, Cambridge; the year 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 theGuyanese 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 inKingston, Jamaica to teach in the History Department.In 1966, Brathwaite spearheaded, as Co-founder and Secretary, the organization of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) from London. In the year 2002, the University of Sussex presented Kamau Brathwaite with an Honorary Doctorate.
The year 1971 he launched "Savacou", a journal of CAM, at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica. That year Brathwaite, born Lawson Edward 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 of 1997-2000, Kamau 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.
Kamau Brathwaite is currently Professor of Comparative Literature at
New York University , a position he has held since 1991.elected works
Selected works of Brathwaite and the year of publication follow:
*"Four Plays for Primary Schools" (1964)
*"Odale's Choice" (1967)
*"Rights of Passage" (1967)
*"Masks" (1968)
*"Islands" (1969)
*"Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica" (1970)
*"The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820" (1971)
*"The Arrivants" (1973)
*"Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean" (1974)
*"Other Exiles" (1975)
*"Days & Nights" (1975)
*"Black + Blues" (1976)
*"Mother Poem" (1977)
*"Soweto" (1979)
*"History of the Voice" (1979)
*"Jamaica Poetry" (1979)
*"Barbados Poetry" (1979)
*"Sun Poem" (1982)
*"Afternoon of the Status Crow" (1982)
*"Gods of the Middle Passage" (1982)
*"Third World Poems" (1983)
*"History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry" (1984)
*"Jah Music" (1986)
*"X/Self" (1987)
*"Sappho Sakyi's Meditations" (1989)
*"Shar" (1992)
*"Middle Passages" (1992)
*"Zea Mexican Diary" (1993)
*"Trenchtown Rock" (1993)
*"Barabajan Poems" (1994)
*"Dream Stories" (1994)
*"Words Need Love Too" (2000)
*"Ancestors" (2001)
*"Magical Realism" (2002)
*"Golokwati" (2002)
*"Born to Slow Horses" (2005) (winner of the 2006 InternationalGriffin Poetry Prize )
*"Limbo" As published in Oxford AQA GCSE English Anthology 2005Critical Writing About Brathwaite
*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 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 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 http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_2/issue_2/dalleo-another.htm] .
*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 http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_1/issue_1/reckin-tidalectic.htm] .External links
*http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/brathwa.htm
* [http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/shortlist_2006.php?t=4 Griffin Poetry Prize biography, including audio and video clips]
* [http://www.oomgallery.net / OOM Gallery Archive / Photograph of Edward Kamau Brathwaithe in Birmingham, United Kingdom 1980's]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHQAK2J7NA Kamau Brathwaite reads from Born to Slow Horses] (video)
* [http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/?c=dloc&m=hrbh&t=Edward+Kamau+Brathwaite Several articles by Brathwaite in CARIFESTA and Tapia] from the [http://www.dloc.com Digital Library of the Caribbean]
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