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According to the Academy of American Poets, "many writers--Native Americans, Latinos/as, gays and lesbians, and younger generations of African Americans have acknowledged their debt to the Black Arts Movement." The movement lasted for about a decade, through the mid-1960s and into the 1970s. This was a period of controversy and change in the world of literature. One major change came through in the portrayal of new ethnic voices in the United States. English-language literature, prior to the Black Arts Movement, was dominated by white authors. |
The Black Arts Movement, although short, is essential to the history of the United States. It spurred political activism and use of speech throughout every African-American community. It allowed African Americans the chance to express their voices in the mass media as well as become involved in communities. |
It can be argued that "the Black Arts movement produced some of the most exciting poetry, drama, dance, music, visual art, and fiction of the post-World War II United States" and that many important "post-Black artists" such as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and August Wilson were shaped by the movement. |
The Black Arts Movement also provided incentives for public funding of the arts and increased public support of various arts initiatives. |
The movement has been seen as one of the most important times in African-American literature. It inspired black people to establish their own publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. It led to the creation of African-American Studies programs within universities. The movement was triggered by the assassination of Malcolm X. Among the well-known writers who were involved with the movement are Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Hoyt W. Fuller, and Rosa Guy. Although not strictly part of the Movement, other notable African-American writers such as novelists Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed share some of its artistic and thematic concerns. Although Reed is neither a movement apologist nor advocate, he said: |
I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that. |
BAM influenced the world of literature with the portrayal of different ethnic voices. Before the movement, the literary canon lacked diversity, and the ability to express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities, which was not valued by the mainstream at the time. |
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and song by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox", on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. A re-recorded version, with a full band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron's first single, "Home Is Where the Hatred Is", from his album "Pieces of a Man" (1971). It was also included on his compilation album, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1974). All these releases were issued on the Flying Dutchman Productions record label. |
The song's title was originally a popular slogan among the 1960s Black Power movements in the United States. Its lyrics either mention or allude to several television series, advertising slogans and icons of entertainment and news coverage that serve as examples of what "the revolution will not" be or do. The song is a response to the spoken-word piece "When the Revolution Comes" by The Last Poets, from their eponymous debut, which opens with the line "When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV". |
It was inducted to the National Recording Registry in 2005. |
Been There, Done That: Family Wisdom for Modern Times is a 2016 non-fiction book written by real life husband and wife Al Roker and Deborah Roberts. |
An insight into the marriage of media personalities Al Roker and Deborah Roberts. |
On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of Straight Black Men Who Sleep with Men is a 2004 New York Times Bestselling non-fiction book by J. L. King. The book was released in hardback on April 14, 2004 through Broadway Books and details the sexual lives of African-American men who are on the "down low" or having sex with men while posing or identifying as heterosexual. When the book was initially released, King denied claims that he was gay in both the book and in the media, but later confirmed that he was gay in 2010. |
In the book King discusses the subject of African-American men who claim to be or otherwise consider themselves to be heterosexual, but hold secret sexual encounters with other men. The men give an outward appearance of only being heterosexual and will hold long-term relationships with women without informing the women or anyone else that they are having encounters, some of which are unprotected, with other men. King also discusses his own personal experience with living on the "down low", as well as what he perceives as potential risks and dangers that some forms of the lifestyle can bring. |
Critical reception for "On the Down Low" was mostly positive, with Booklist calling the book "a revealing look at an important social and health issue". Robert Burns, director of Brother to Brother, criticized the book, stating that it "perpetuates stereotypes" and that the down low culture was "more complex" and "doesn't just exist the way (King) explained it". |
In 2005 King's ex-wife Brenda Stone Browder published "On the Up and Up", a non-fiction book that was described as both a "survival guide" and a biography of Browder's life before and after discovering King's activities. |
John F. Callahan is literary executor for Ralph Ellison, and was the editor for his posthumously-released novel "Juneteenth". In addition to his work with Ellison, Callahan has written or edited numerous volumes related to African-American literature, with a particular emphasis on 20th century literature. |
Some of Callahan's other works include "In the African-American Grain: The Pursuit of Voice in 20th Century Black Fiction", "Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Casebook", and "The Illusions of a Nation: Myth and History in the Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald". Callahan also edited Ellison's short story collection "Flying Home" and co-edited with Albert Murray the Modern Library edition of "Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray". As Darryl Pinckney has observed: "Thanks to Callahan, there are more Ellison titles now than existed during his lifetime." |
In 2010 Callahan published a fuller version of Ellison's unfinished second novel as "Three Days Before the Shooting". |
Callahan serves as the Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities at Lewis & Clark College. |
He earned his B.A. from the University of Connecticut and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. |
Callahan is the author of "A Man You Could Love", a novel published in 2007 by Fulcrum Publishing. |
In 2015, Callahan donated his papers to the Lewis & Clark Archives. |
Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence |
The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence is an annual national literary award designed to recognize rising African-American fiction writers. First awarded in 2007, the prize is underwritten by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation in honor of the literary heritage provided by author Ernest J. Gaines, with the winner receiving a cash award ($15,000 as of 2020) "to support and enable the writer to focus on writing." It has been described as "the nation's biggest prize for African-American writers". |
Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown is a 1995 book by Tony Brown, published by William Morrow & Company. |
Brown advocates for black self-reliance. He criticizes black politicians' ties to the Democratic Party. He stated that African-Americans make up four "tribes". Richard Kahlenberg of "The Washington Post""stated that "conspiracy theories", including those targeting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and saying that AIDS research funds are not distributed properly, make up about 33% of the content. Kahlenberg stated that the criticisms of affirmative action for wealthier minorities are "flashes of insight". |
The book was dedicated to his foster guardians, Elizabeth "Mama" Sanford and Mabel Holmes, Sanford's daughter. |
Kahlenberg stated that Brown's "sensationalist style that works better on television than in print" undermines his "legitimate criticisms". |
"Publishers Weekly" stated that Brown "undermines his case with a broad-brush assessment of the black community", referring to the designation of tribes, "and exaggerated references to black leaders' support for (and America's drift to) ``socialism."" |
The Black Renaissance in D.C. was a social, intellectual, and cultural movement in Washington, D.C. that began in 1919 and continued into the late 1920s. |
Before the start of the Black Renaissance, Washington, D.C. developed an educated and prosperous Black middle class, made up of Black intellectuals and scholars who often studied at Howard University. Washington, D.C. had the country's largest Black community from 1900 to 1920, heavily influencing the development of the Black Renaissance in the area. |
While the Black Renaissance movement ultimately began in Harlem, Manhattan, New York, with the Harlem Renaissance, the movement ultimately spread to cities across the United States. In Washington, D.C., the movement began on July 19, 1919, with the alleged sexual assault of a white woman by a black predator. The event was never confirmed, but it incited inflammatory responses from the four daily newspapers in the city. Several hundred whites formed a mob near Murder Bay off of Pennsylvania Avenue, a neighborhood known for prostitution and violence. The mob went on to assault a Black couple who were walking on 9th and D Streets, Southwest. Many prominent figures in the Harlem movement had strong roots in Washington, D.C. and heavily influenced the movement there. |
U-Street was known as a place of entertainment and jazz music. The street was often referred to as "Black Broadway". |
Afro-Brazilian literature has existed in Brazil since the mid-19th century with the publication of Maria Firmina dos Reis's novel "Ursula" in 1859. Other writers from the late 19th century and early 20th century include Machado de Assis, Cruz e Sousa and Lima Barreto. Yet, Afro-Brazilian literature as a genre that recognized the ethnic and cultural origins of the writer did not gain national prominence in Brazil until the 1970s with the revival of Black Consciousness politics known as the Movimento Negro. |
Literature written by individuals or groups of African ancestry in the present-day nation of Brazil, it can trace its origins to the 19th century. However, oral traditions of histories and narratives can be traced back to the 16th century when African slaves were brought across the Atlantic to work in the Portuguese colonies. Written forms of Afro-Brazilian literature do not appear until the 19th century with publications by writers such as Maria Firmina dos Reis, Cruz e Sousa and Machado de Assis. |
There also existed during the 19th century a vast wealth of literature on Afro-Brazilians written by White Brazilians. Many of these writers were abolitionists that included Castro Alves, Joaquim Nabuco, Joaquim Manuel de Macedo, and Naturalist writers that included Aluísio Azevedo, Jose Veríssimo, and Raul Pompéia. The well known Bahian author of the 20th century, Jorge Amado, also included many aspects of Afro-Brazilian culture and religion in many of his novels such as "Tenda dos Milagres" ("Tent of Miracles") and "A Morte e a Morte de Quincas Berro Dágua" ("The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell"). |
With the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa found in Brazil, the importance of focusing on Afro-Brazilian literature has increased in recent years with the publication of multiple anthologies and literary criticisms revolving around Afro-Brazilian writers. Furthermore, Afro-Brazilian literature reflects the complex relationship between Brazil's long history of slavery, its politics of branqueamento (racial whitening) that were implemented by the Brazilian government during the late 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and the myth of racial democracy that pervaded and still exists within the Brazilian national consciousness. |
Considered to be the greatest Brazilian writer and the first writer to be inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Machado de Assis was a mulatto (more specifically, a quadroon) whose grandparents were slaves. |
An Afro-Brazilian literary group founded by a group of Paulistanos in 1980 by Cuti, Oswaldo de Camargo, Paulo Colina, Abelardo Rodrigues and others, its objective was to discuss and deepen the understanding of Afro-Brazilians in literature. It also desired to promote the habit of reading and to develop and to encourage studies, research and analysis concerning Black literature and culture. The group is best known for its annual publication of "Cadernos Negros" (Black Notebooks), an anthology of poetry, fiction, and essays by Afro-Brazilian writers, artists and intellectuals. In collaboration with other organizations and academic literary departments, they have created courses, seminars, and debates about Afro-Brazilian literature and questions of race in literature. Since 1999 the group is coordinated by Esmeralda Ribeiro and Márcio Barbosa. |
Best known for his novel "Cidade de Deus" ("City of God"), Paulo Lins currently teaches at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. "Cidade de Deus" was the result of eight years of ethnographic fieldwork that Lins conducted in the favela of the same name and where he grew up as a child. Lins is currently working on a book that deals with slavery in Brazil since the 15th century. |
Writing Black Britain 1948–1998 is an anthology of black British writings published in 2000 and edited by James Procter. The selection of writings includes many well-known writers such as Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy. This is an interdisciplinary collection and contains a variety of writings that discuss different forms of representation, i.e. films, music, and photography. It is centred on works of the diaspora, including Caribbean, African, and South Asian experiences. This collection is the first of its kind and critically engages with both the construction and community of "black Britain" and power relations. Every writer has something to say about their own positionality and how they've come to theorize black Britain. |
The book is subdivided into three main parts covering distinct time periods: 1948 to late 1960s, later 1960s to mid-1980s, and mid-1980s to late 1990s. Each main part is framed by an introduction and then divided between "literature" and "essays and documents". |
While many anthologies following were filled with pieces written specifically for the anthology's publication, "Writing Black Britain" is a collection of previously published text. These pieces were initially compiled in order to prevent misinterpretation and inaccuracy about Black communities in Britain and Germany. Because of this, the anthology was aimed at speaking to mainstream white audiences in order to highlight the Black presence in European life. |
When reading and discussing "Writing Black Britain", it is important to keep in mind the fact that it was designed for use in university coursework and the potential effect this may have had on what materials were and were not included for publication. |
This anthology engages with blackness and the Caribbean Community in Britain, especially looking at migration and how art serves as resistance. The Caribbean Artists Movement began in Britain, giving this discussion local relevance. In the first section, Claudia Jones speaks to the cultural identity formation of Afro-Caribbeans. |
Recognizing the centrality of black women struggles within the formation of a black Britain, within this anthology black women speak to power differentials and intersectionality in their essay. As Hazel Carby states, "The fact that black women are subject to the 'simultaneous' oppression of patriarchy, class, and 'race' is the prime reason for not employing parallels that render their position and experience not only marginal but also invisible." |
The anthology brings conversations to light, including the conversation/debate that occurred between Stuart Hall, Darcus Howe, and Salman Rushdie. The Black Audio Film Collective released their film "Handsworth Songs" (1986), and there was much to say about it and its implications. The film looks at the "riots" of 1985 in Handsworth and South London. |
The Atlantic Sound is a 2000 travel book by Caryl Phillips. It was published in the UK by Faber and Faber and in the US by Knopf. In the words of the "Publishers Weekly" review: "Journeys, as forces of spiritual and cultural transformation, bind this trio of nonfiction narratives, which explores the legacy of slavery in each of the three major points of the transatlantic slave trade." |
The book was described by "Kirkus Reviews" as: "A splendidly honest and vividly detailed venture into some of history's darkest corners—by a novelist who is also a superb reporter." |
Gents is a novel by Warwick Collins first published in 1997. It is set in the unlikely environment of a "Gentlemen's" toilet, somewhere in London. |
The story describes the lives of three West Indian immigrants who run a public urinal in London. Collins claimed it was stimulated in part by his memories of apartheid when he lived as a child in South Africa. The New York Times reviewer wrote: "Mr. Collins is able to express, deftly, several contrasting views of homosexuality. ..., resolves to make up his own mind about "alternative" life styles and does precisely that, with a mixture of love and logic." |
The Saga Prize was a literary award for new Black British novelists, which ran from 1995 to 1998. |
The actress and writer Marsha Hunt established the Saga Prize in 1995 to recognise the literature emerging from indigenous black Britons' experiences. The prize – of £3,000 and a book contract – was for unpublished first novels. To be eligible, entrants needed a black African ancestor and to have been born in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland. The prize was sponsored by the travel firm Saga plc. Judges included Andrea Levy and Margaret Busby. |
The "afrocentric" nature of the Saga Prize and its restrictive definition of blackness caused controversy. The Commission for Racial Equality objected to its creation, and the Society of Authors refused to support it. The prize was successful, nevertheless, and ran for four years until 1998, winners including Diran Adebayo and Joanna Traynor. |
Frances-Anne Solomon (born 28 June 1966) is a Caribbean British-Canadian filmmaker, writer, producer, and distributor. She lives between Toronto, Canada, and Barbados. |
Born in England of Trinidadian parents, Frances-Anne Solomon began her professional life at the BBC in England, where she built a successful career as a producer, first with BBC Radio then with BBC television drama. She also produced and directed independent films through her company Leda Serene Films. |
In 1999, she moved her company to Canada, where she continued to write, direct, and produce films, television programs, theatre plays, and new media projects. |
In 2001, she founded CaribbeanTales, a charitable organisation producing, exhibiting and distributing educational multi-media projects based on Caribbean-heritage stories. The CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, founded in 2006 and based in Toronto, includes an annual festival, community screening series, and youth-focused film challenges. The CaribbeanTales Incubator Program develops original content for the regional and international market, CTFF also holds workshops and festivals in other territories, including to date Barbados, Belize, and Cuba. In 2010, Solomon founded CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution Inc, the first film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean dedicated to the marketing and sales of Caribbean-themed films. In 2014 she launched CaribbeanTales-TV, a video-on-demand platform. |
Solomon is a Director member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. |
Solomon is the granddaughter of Trinidad and Tobago independence politician Dr. Patrick Solomon. When her grandfather left politics and took a role as a diplomat, the family lived in different countries including Canada, the United States, Europe and Venezuela. She moved back to Trinidad at nine years old, and attended the girls' "prestige" school, Bishop Anstey High School. At 18 she moved to Canada to live with her mother, and discovered a love of the arts, studying theatre at the University of Toronto's U.C. Playhouse, and poetry with Jay Macpherson. In 1986, she moved to England, to work for the BBC. |
She trained in television production through the two-year BBC Production Training Program and worked with "Ebony", the Corporation's first Black magazine programme, before being hired as a Radio Drama producer in London. While there she was responsible for helping to introduce a number of initiatives aimed at diversifying the talent pool in BBC Radio Drama. Many great talents got their first entry to Radio Drama in this way, including actors Adjoa Andoh and Clarence Smith to the BBC Drama Repertory Company, producers Pam Fraser Solomon and Nandita Ghose, composer Dominique Le Gendre and writers Parv Bancil, Maya Chowdhry, Rukhsana Ahmad, Tanika Gupta and Jackie Kay among others. |
Solomon returned to television as a Script Editor for ScreenPlay, a strand of mostly studio-based TV dramas. Between 1992 and 1998 she worked as a script editor and then as a producer and executive producer for BBC Single Drama and Films under George S. J. Faber. For the BBC she produced and executive-produced feature films, including "Speak Like a Child", director John Akomfrah's narrative debut, and "Love Is The Devil", John Maybury's award-winning first feature. She credits her time at the BBC as providing her with a grounding, and vision of the importance and creative power of public service broadcasting. |
In 1993, Solomon won a place on the prestigious BBC Drama Directors Course. While working as a Drama Producer for the BBC, she continued to run her own company Leda Serene Films, where she developed, produced and directed films including "What My Mother Told Me", a Trinidad-based autobiographical story of generational violence in the context of a middle-class family; and "Peggy Su!", produced by BBC Films. Set in a Chinese laundry in Liverpool in the 1960s, it remains one of the only British films to depict the lives of the Chinese in Britain. |
Ultimately she found the racism of the British film and television industry constraining, and like many of her peers, chose to emigrate. Returning to Canada in 2000, she founded the CaribbeanTales Media Group and continued to develop and produce television, feature films and new media projects. "Lord Have Mercy!", produced with Claire Prieto and Vanz Chapman, was Canada's first multicultural sitcom, and starred Russell Peters alongside Caribbean stars Leonie Forbes and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall. "A Winter Tale", CityTV, 2007, depicts a Caribbean-Canadian community plagued by gun violence in Toronto. |
Solomon is the director of "HERO", a hybrid feature, inspired by elements of the life of Trinidad and Tobago war hero, judge and jurist Ulric Cross. |
Solomon was the recipient of the 2018 Visionary Award from the ReelWorld Film Festival. |
On 1 July 2019 Solomon was one of 842 new members invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. The 2019 class is 50% women, 29% people of color, and represents 59 countries. |
CaribbeanTales Inc a not-for-profit company was formed in 2001, originally as an internet platform for Caribbean-themed film and arts. Early projects include CaribbeanTales.ca, a multimedia e-newsletter, and "Literature Alive", a multi-faceted project including an educational website, audio books, and a documentary series, profiling Caribbean authors, many of whom are based in Canada. The non-profit company became a registered Canadian charity in 2014. |
In 2006, Solomon founded the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival in Toronto as a platform for Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora films and filmmakers from the region. The CaribbeanTales Youth Film Festival, during Black History Month in Toronto, screens Africentric films in schools and communities. The Film Festival Group has also produced festivals and events in Barbados and New York. |
While teaching film at the University of the West Indies in 2009, she consolidated her connections in the region. This led to the creation of CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution, a Barbados-based company, and the first film distribution company dedicated to international distribution of Caribbean-themed audio visual content. The company was co-founded with cultural industries specialist Dr. Keith Nurse, businessman Terrence Farrell, and filmmakers Lisa Wickham and Mary Wells, with the goal to tackle head-on problems of the monetisation of Caribbean-themed content and the development of the Caribbean Film Industry. |
The Creators of Colour Incubator (formerly CaribbeanTales Incubator Program), also founded in 2010, an annual program that takes place during the Toronto International Film Festival, aims to train filmmakers in the creation and marketing of sustainable content, and has been committed to helping to develop an infrastructure and international profile for Caribbean films, in the region and the diaspora. |
The Program has evolved into a development and production hub for regional content. In 2015, CaribbeanTales won a five-year sponsorship and production deal with Flow, the brand name for Cable and Wireless Ltd, the largest telecommunications conglomerate in the Caribbean. The deal, brokered with Flow C.E.O John Reid, supports the production of at least three television series pilots a year from the CaribbeanTales Incubator Program. In 2016, the first of these projects were selected: "Caribbean Girl NYC" by Mariette Monpierre, "Battledream Chronicle" by Alain Bidard, and "Heat" by Menelik Shabazz. Production is underway in New York, Martinique and Barbados respectively. In 2017 Flow and CaribbeanTales expanded their relationship to give Flow subscribers around the Caribbean access to CaribbeanTales vast catalogue of films through Television on demand. |
CaribbeanTales established an online VOD platform CaribbeanTales-TV. |
Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta ( born in 21 July 1944, died in 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian novelist, based in the UK from 1962. she wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works for children. She authored more than 20 books, including "Second Class Citizen" (1974), "The Bride Price" (1976), "The Slave Girl" (1977) and "The Joys of Motherhood" (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby. |
Emecheta's themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education gained recognition from critics and honours. She once described her stories as "stories of the world, where women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical." Her works explore the tension between tradition and modernity. She has been characterized as "the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948". |
From 1965 to 1969, Emecheta worked as a library officer for the British Museum in London. From 1969 to 1976, she was a youth worker and sociologist for the Inner London Education Authority, and from 1976 to 1978 she worked as a community worker in Camden, North London, meanwhile continuing to produce further novels with Allison and Busby – "The Bride Price" (1976), "The Slave Girl" (1977), "The Joys of Motherhood" (1979) and "Destination Biafra" (1982) – as well as the children's books "Titch the Cat" (1979) and "Nowhere To Play" (1980). |
Over the years, Emecheta worked with many cultural and literary organizations, including the Africa Centre, London, and with the Caine Prize for African Writing as a member of the Advisory Council. |
Buchi Emecheta suffered a stroke in 2010, and she died in London on 25 January 2017, aged 72. |
Most of her fictional works are focused on sexual discrimination and racial prejudice informed by her own experiences as both a single parent and a black woman living in the United Kingdom. |
Among honours received during her literary career, Emecheta won the 1978 Jock Campbell Prize from the "New Statesman" (first won by Chinua Achebe's "Arrow of God") for her novel "The Slave Girl", and she was on "Granta" magazine's 1983 list of 20 "Best of Young British Novelists". She was a member of the British Home Secretary's Advisory Council on Race in 1979. |
In September 2004, she appeared in the "A Great Day in London" photograph taken at the British Library, featuring 50 Black and Asian writers who have made major contributions to contemporary British literature. In 2005, she was made an OBE for services to literature. |
She received an Honorary doctorate of literature from Farleigh Dickinson University in 1992. |
Buchi Emecheta features at number 98 on a list of 100 women recognised in August 2018 by "BBC History Magazine" as having changed the world. |
In March 2019, Camden Town Brewery launched a football kit using artwork featuring "some of the most inspiring female icons to have influenced the brewery's home borough of Camden". |
On 21 July 2019, which would have been Emecheta's 75th birthday, Google commemorated her life with a Doodle. |
In October 2019 a new exhibition space in the library for students at Goldsmiths, University of London, was dedicated to Buchi Emecheta. |
Pam Fraser Solomon FRSA is a British producer/director of Guyanese heritage, whose work spans four decades in theatre, radio, film, television and education, winning prizes such as the Commission for Racial Equality "Race in the Media Award" in 1999. Her career in fringe and repertory theatre includes working for venues such as the Sheffield Crucible and the Theatre Royal Stratford East, and she is currently the Head of Creative Producing at Mountview drama school. |
Speaking of how her Guyanese heritage and the experience of growing up in London as a Black woman has impacted her work, Fraser Solomon has said: "People like me with experiences that can inform characterisation and storytelling, subtly changing the emphasis, can lead drama away from comfort zones. This doesn't make me better than others, but it makes my contribution equally valid. I see the world through the eyes of a Black woman, so in that sense all my intuition eventually leads back to that fact." |
From 1991, Fraser Solomon was for 16 years a senior producer with BBC Radio, where she directed more than a hundred hours of audio dramas, and she was involved in major arts events such as the Africa95 and Africa '05 festivals, as well as the 2007 Abolition commemoration season. She wrote and produced for BBC Radio 4 in January 2001 the programme "Stealing the Glory", about the Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, presented by Colin Salmon. |
Her television drama work encompasses producing several episodes of "EastEnders" and "Holby City", and she was the development producer for the BBC short film "One Night In White Satin". She was an executive producer of the 2007 BBC2 television documentary "In Search of Wilberforce", presented by Moira Stuart. |
Continuing her career as a freelance producer, director and script editor, Fraser Solomon was involved in projects including the production of the documentary film "Divided by Race, United in War and Peace", about Caribbean war veterans and their struggles against colour prejudice and racism. She took up the position of Head of MA Creative Producing at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2018. She is also Co-Chair of Theatre Deli. |
Among her awards as a producer/director are a 1999 Commission for Racial Equality "Race in the Media Award" (RIMA) for Radio Drama as director of Margaret Busby's play based on C. L. R. James's novel "Minty Alley", first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 1998, featuring Geff Francis, Vivienne Rochester and Burt Caesar. |
Fraser Solomon has served as a judge for prizes including The Whickers Radio & Audio Funding Award (RAFA). |
Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels (for which he has won multiple awards), Phillips is often described as a writer, since much of his fictional output is defined by its interest in, and searching exploration of, the experiences of peoples of the African diaspora in England, the Caribbean and the United States. As well as writing, Phillips has worked as an academic at numerous institutions including Amherst College, Barnard College, and Yale University, where he has held the position of Professor of English since 2005. |
At the age of 22, he visited St. Kitts for the first time since his family had left the island in 1958. The journey provided the inspiration for his first novel, "The Final Passage", which was published five years later. After publishing his second book, "A State of Independence" (1986), Phillips went on a one-month journey around Europe, which resulted in his 1987 collection of essays "The European Tribe". During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Phillips divided his time between England and St. Kitts while working on his novels "Higher Ground" (1989) and "Cambridge" (1991). |
In 1990, Phillips took up a Visiting Writer post at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He remained at Amherst College for a further eight years, becoming the youngest English tenured Professor in the US when he was promoted to that position in 1995. During this time, he wrote what is perhaps his best-known novel, "Crossing the River" (1993), which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. After taking up the position at Amherst, Phillips found himself doing "a sort of triangular thing" for a number of years, residing between England, St Kitts, and the U.S. |
Finding this way of living both "incredibly exhausting" and "prohibitively expensive", Phillips ultimately decided to give up his residence in St. Kitts, though he says he still makes regular visits to the island. In 1998, he joined Barnard College, Columbia University, as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order. In 2005 he moved to Yale University, where he currently works as Professor of English. He was made an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2000, and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2011. |
Phillips has tackled themes on the African slave trade from many angles, and his writing is concerned with issues of "origins, belongings and exclusion", as noted by a reviewer of his 2015 novel "The Lost Child". Phillips's work has been recognised by numerous awards, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1993 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for "Crossing the River" and the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book award for "A Distant Shore". |
Phillips received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award for "Dancing in the Dark" in 2006. |
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