Amon Saba Saakana

Last updated

Amon Saba Saakana
Born
Sebastian Clarke

1948 (age 75–76)
Trinidad and Tobago
Education Mountview Theatre School;
School of Oriental and African Studies;
Goldsmiths College, University of London;
Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist, lecturer, filmmaker and publisher
Known forFounder of publishing company Karnak House
Website amonsabasaakana.com

Amon Saba Saakana (born 1948), formerly known as Sebastian Clarke, [1] [2] is a Trinidad-born writer, journalist, lecturer, filmmaker and publisher, who migrated to Britain in 1965. In the 1970s, he founded the publishing imprint Karnak House in London. As an author, his books encompass poetry, fiction, literary criticism, and works on cultural and historical topics.

Contents

Biography

Education and early career

Born Sebastian Clarke in Trinidad, he migrated as a teenager in 1965 with his six siblings to England, where their parents had come to work in a London factory. [3] [4] [5] He studied playwriting at Mountview Theatre School (1966–1967), began visiting Paris in 1968 and connecting with Caribbeans and Africans there, [6] then for four years from 1970 he lived in the United States, [7] [8] going there at the invitation of Ed Bullins, who had been in London for the production of some of his plays. [4] In a 2019 interview Saakana said: "Bullins also got me a job at Marymount College, a girls' school, as a drama tutor, and also got me a job as assistant editor at the New York Festival Public Theatre which went into publishing two drama journals, one for play scripts, the other for reviews, features, interviews and performance." [4]

On returning in 1974 to London from the US, where he had also been inspired by the theatre work of LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), Saakana became a contributor to the drama magazine Plays & Players , and one of his plays, Soul of the Nation, was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1975, and ]moved to the Roundhouse for a two-week run. [4]

Saakana was part of what Paul Breman described as "London's very active black literature scene of the early 1970s", [9] which included the Caribbean Artists Movement. [10] He worked as a freelance journalist in London between 1969 and 1981, writing on music, drama, and literature in such outlets as Time Out , the New Statesman , New Musical Express , Melody Maker , Sounds , Black Echoes , Caribbean Times , Race Today , The New African , and he was the founding editor of the journal Frontline. He also contributed to other international publications including Essence , The Amsterdam News , Crawdaddy , Présence Africaine , UNESCO Courier , Trinidad Newsday , and Bendel Times (Nigeria). [7]

His contribution towards the making of the BBC TV documentary Reggae (1971), directed by Horace Ové, led Saakana to write his first nonfiction book, Jah Music: The Development of Jamaica Popular Music (1980), which was the first history of Jamaican popular music. [4]

In 1982 he earned a Diploma of Higher Education in Caribbean Studies from the University of East London, followed by an MA in Caribbean literature from the same university (1988). [7] His master's thesis was subsequently published as Colonialism & the Destruction of the Mind: Psychosocial issues of race, sexuality, class and gender in the novels of Roy Heath (1997). Saakana also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies and at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where in 1995 he obtained his Ph.D. in Drama & Cultural Studies. [7] [4] [11] He received a certificate (distinction) and diploma (merit) in Egyptian Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (1996–1998). [7]

Karnak House

In 1975, Saakana founded the publishing company Karnak House, initially as Caribbean Cultural International (CCI), "an organization of writers and artists coming together to create a new platform for the work of Caribbean and Black British writers and artists in Britain." [12] [13] CCI was inspired by the work of Amiri Baraka, who founded a facility known as Spirit House in Newark, New Jersey. [6] Saakana sought out a four-storey rent-free building from the Notting Hill Housing Trust and turned it into an arts centre, [4] located since 1977 in Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill, and renamed as Karnak House. [12] [14] The centre "soon transcended its regional perspective and included work by Africans in any geographical location as well as progressive Europeans of any nationality, a model well preceded by Society of African Culture in Paris." [6] Karnak House put on exhibitions, conducted classes in African languages and organized lectures as well as conferences, involving a wide range of creatives and intellectuals from the African diaspora, including Alem Mezgebe, Emmanuel Jegede, Charles Sambono, Babatunde Banjoko, Seheri Sujai, Horace Ové, Errol Lloyd, Lance Watson, Norman Reid, and Vernon St. Hilaire. [4]

Karnak House began publishing in 1979. [4] Its stated objectives are "to continuously locate and publish books by Caribbean and African writers in the field of creative fiction and poetry" and "to renew and reinterpret African civilizations through the prism of Africans themselves or progressive writers of any ethnic background." [12]

The imprint's first publication was New Planet, an anthology including both new and previously published poets such as John La Rose, Kamau Brathwaite and Marc Matthews. Among notable titles that Saakana has published is I is a Long-memoried Woman by Grace Nichols, which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1983. Karnak House authors have also included Cheikh Anta Diop, Hilary Beckles, Ifi Amadiume, Imruh Bakari, Jan Knappert, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Maureen Warner-Lewis, Théophile Obenga, and Jacob Carruthers. [15] [12]

In 1985, Karnak House organised its first major international conference under the title The Afrikan Origin of Civilization, which featured Cheikh Anta Diop as the primary speaker, along with Ivan Van Sertima, and Carlos Moore. This led to Diop being brought to the US, being granted the key to the city of Atlanta by Mayor Andrew Young, and receiving wide coverage for his visit. [6]

The continuing difficulties facing Black publishing houses such as Karnak House, New Beacon Books and others, including access to coverage on the books pages of the mainstream press, [16] were highlighted by Saakana in a 1988 Washington Post article, which concludes: "Whatever the problems that have confronted the black press in London, it has injected into the mainstream an imaginative and dramatic body of diverse literature. ... Perhaps, then, indigenous black publishers have stirred the imagination of the mainstream and created an atmosphere, through conferences, forums, book fairs, etc., in which the black writer can be seen as an economic asset to a previously flagging British publishing industry." [17]

Alongside his work as commissioning editor of Karnak House, Saakana is an independent scholar and does research in Philosophy, Literary Theory and African World Literatures. [18]

Writing

Saakana's own books include poetry collections, the first study on Jamaican popular music, entitled Jah Music (1980), [19] a 1985 novel Blues Dance (reviewing which Polly Toynbee wrote in The Guardian : "It is a harrowing book, bloody and violent, frightening and often mystifying, but through it all there is a surprising kind of optimism"), [5] and works of literary criticism such as The Colonial Legacy in Caribbean Literature, as well a notable work on Guyanese novelist Roy A. K. Heath, entitled Colonialism and the Destruction of the Mind (1997). [20]

As lecturer

Saakana has lectured at many educational institutions in Britain and the US, including the University of Warwick, University of Keele, Goldsmiths, University of London, the Institute of Education, University of Hull, Leicester University, University of Exeter, University of Essex, Reading University; City College of New York, Manhattan Community College, Staten Island Community College, Temple University, Wellesley College, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of North London. [7] He also lectured at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago. [21]

Media work

Saakana directed and produced the films Texturing the Word: 40 Years of Caribbean Writing in Britain (1985, featuring George Lamming, Edward Brathwaite, Roy Heath, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols, Marc Matthews), [22] and Ida's Daughter: The World of Eintou Pearl Springer (2010). [23] He has also worked in various capacities on productions for the BBC and ITV. [7]

Selected bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rastafari</span> Religion originating in 1930s Jamaica

Rastafari is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.

Edward Kamau Brathwaite, CHB, was a Barbadian poet and academic, widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. Formerly a professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, Brathwaite was the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry Born to Slow Horses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheikh Anta Diop</span> Senegalese politician, historian and scientist (1923–1986)

Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the theory of Afrocentricity, though he himself never described himself as an Afrocentrist. The questions he posed about cultural bias in scientific research contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study of African civilizations.

People from the Caribbean have made significant contributions to British Black music for many generations.

Caribbean literature is the literature of the various territories of the Caribbean region. Literature in English from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, as West Indian literature. Most of these territories have become independent nations since the 1960s, though some retain colonial ties to the United Kingdom. They share, apart from the English language, a number of political, cultural, and social ties which make it useful to consider their literary output in a single category. Note that other non-independent islands may include the Caribbean unincorporated territories of the United States, however literature from this region has not yet been studied as a separate category and is independent from West Indian literature. The more wide-ranging term "Caribbean literature" generally refers to the literature of all Caribbean territories regardless of language—whether written in English, Spanish, French, Hindustani, or Dutch, or one of numerous creoles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vahni Capildeo</span> Trinidad and Tobago writer

Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Joseph</span> Trinidad and Tobago writer, musician and academic (born 1966)

Anthony Joseph FRSL is a British/Trinidadian poet, novelist, musician and academic. In 2023, he was awarded the T. S. Eliot Prize for his book Sonnets for Albert.

Jan Rynveld Carew was a Guyana-born novelist, playwright, poet and educator, who lived at various times in The Netherlands, Mexico, the UK, France, Spain, Ghana, Jamaica, Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British African-Caribbean people</span> British ethnic group

British African-Caribbean people or British Afro-Caribbean people are an ethnic group in the United Kingdom. They are British citizens whose recent ancestors originate from the Caribbean, and further trace much of their ancestry to West and Central Africa or they are nationals of the Caribbean who reside in the UK. There are some self-identified Afro-Caribbean people who are multi-racial. The most common and traditional use of the term African-Caribbean community is in reference to groups of residents continuing aspects of Caribbean culture, customs and traditions in the UK.

Peepal Tree Press is a publisher based in Leeds, England which publishes Caribbean, Black British, and South Asian fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and academic books. Poet Kwame Dawes has said, "Peepal Tree Press's position as the leading publisher of Caribbean literature, and especially of Caribbean poetry, is unassailable."

Andrew Salkey was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaican and Panamanian origin.

Eintou Pearl Springer is a poet, playwright, librarian and cultural activist from Trinidad and Tobago. In May 2002, she was named Poet Laureate of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Una Marson</span> Jamaican writer and activist (1905–1965)

Una Maud Victoria Marson was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer, producing poems, plays and radio programmes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindsay Barrett</span> Jamaican-born poet, novelist, essayist and journalist (born 1941)

Carlton Lindsay Barrett, also known as Eseoghene, is a Jamaican-born poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist and photographer, whose work has interacted with the Caribbean Artists Movement in the UK, the Black Arts Movement in the US, and pan-Africanism in general. Leaving Jamaica in the early 1960s, he moved to Britain, where he freelanced as a broadcaster and journalist, also travelling and living elsewhere in Europe, before deciding to relocate to West Africa. Since the latter 1960s he has been based mainly in Nigeria, of which country he became a citizen in the mid-1980s, while continuing his connection to cultural ventures in the UK and US.

<i>Caribbean Voices</i> BBC World Service radio programme

Caribbean Voices was a radio programme broadcast by the BBC World Service from Bush House in London, England, between 1943 and 1958. It is considered "the programme in which West Indian literary talents first found their voice, in the early 1950s." Caribbean Voices nurtured many writers who went on to wider acclaim, including Samuel Selvon, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, John Figueroa, Andrew Salkey, Michael Anthony, Edgar Mittelholzer, Sylvia Wynter, and others.

The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean. A registered non-profit company, the festival has as its title sponsor the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC). Other sponsors and partners include First Citizens Bank, One Caribbean Media (OCM), who sponsor the associated OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, CODE, and the Commonwealth Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Berry (poet)</span> Jamaican poet (1924–2017)

James Berry, OBE, Hon. FRSL, was a Jamaican poet who settled in England in the 1940s. His poetry is notable for using a mixture of standard English and Jamaican Patois. Berry's writing often "explores the relationship between black and white communities and in particular, the excitement and tensions in the evolving relationship of the Caribbean immigrants with Britain and British society from the 1940s onwards". As the editor of two seminal anthologies, Bluefoot Traveller (1976) and News for Babylon (1984), he was in the forefront of championing West Indian/British writing.

Arif Ali is a Guyanese-born publisher and newspaper proprietor who migrated to London in 1957. The company he founded in 1970, Hansib, was among pioneering publishers in the UK that disseminated publications of relevance to Britain's black community, others including New Beacon Books (1966) and Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (1968). Hansib went on to become the largest black publisher in Europe. In March 2024, Ali was announced as winner of the annual Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters.

Anne Walmsley is a British-born editor, scholar, critic and author, notable as a specialist in Caribbean art and literature, whose career spans five decades. She is widely recognised for her work as Longman's Caribbean publisher, and for Caribbean books that she authored and edited. Her pioneering school anthology, The Sun's Eye: West Indian Writing for Young Readers (1968), drew on her use of local literary material while teaching in Jamaica. A participant in and chronicler of the Caribbean Artists Movement, Walmsley is also the author of The Caribbean Artists Movement: A Literary and Cultural History, 1966–1971 (1992) and Art in the Caribbean (2010). She lives in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhodan Gordon</span> Black British community activist (1939– 2018)

Rhodan Gordon was a Black British community activist, who migrated to London from Grenada in the 1960s. He came to public attention in 1970 as one of the nine protestors, known as the Mangrove Nine, arrested and tried on charges that included conspiracy to incite a riot, following a protest against repeated police raids of The Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, London. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred, rather than legitimate crime control, within the Metropolitan Police.

References

  1. ↑ Emrit, Ronald C. "Amon Saba Saakana (aka Sebastian Clarke)". Best of Trinidad. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  2. ↑ "Jah music : the evolution of the popular Jamaican song / Sebastian Clarke". Smithsonian .
  3. ↑ "Tones & Colours by Amon Saba Saakana". Karnak House. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mekassa, Ambo (16 December 2019). "Comparative approach of dissecting literature, history to chart out better ways forward". Ethiopian Herald . Ethiopian Press Agency. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
  5. 1 2 Toynbee, Polly (24 February 1986). "A word in your white ear". The Guardian. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Saakana, Amon Saba (7 November 2017). "Karnak House & Cheikh Anta Diop Paradigm in the African World View". Karnak House. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "About". Amon Saba Saakana, Ph.D. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "GOING OUT Guide". The New York Times . 8 May 1974. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  9. ↑ Ramey, Lauri, with Paul Breman (eds), The Heritage Series of Black Poetry, 1962–1975: A Research Compendium, Ashgate Publishing, 2008, pp. 153–154.
  10. ↑ Schwarz, Bill (2013). West Indian Intellectuals in Britain. Manchester University Press. ISBN   9781847795717.
  11. ↑ "Sites of conflict : identity, sexuality & reproduction : European mythological imaging of the African on the London stage 1908–1939 / Amon Saba Saakana". Goldsmiths, University of London.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Our Story and Our Mission". Karnak House. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  13. ↑ "Towards a radical black publishing space". George Padmore Institute . Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  14. ↑ "Westbourne Park Road". Ladbroke Grove Association. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  15. ↑ "Karnak House". Open Library . Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  16. ↑ Busby, Margaret (24 March 1993). "Diary". The Guardian. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Saakana, Amon Saba (3 July 1988). "Out of the Colonial Cocoon". The Washington Post.
  18. ↑ "Amon Saba Saakana". ResearchGate. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  19. ↑ Walker, Klive (30 September 2016). "Reggae Reading List". The Jamaica Gleaner .
  20. ↑ Creighton, Al (22 July 2018). "Dissecting Roy Heath and Guyanese literature". Stabroek News .
  21. ↑ "Speakers". Art Africa Miami. 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  22. ↑ "Texturing the Word. 40 years of Caribbean writing in Britain". Arts on Film Archive. University of Westminster. 19 November 2015. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  23. ↑ "Ida's Daughter: The World of Eintou Pear Springer". British Council Film. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.