Sir Derek Alton Walcott OM was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright.
Harold Sonny Ladoo was a Caribbean novelist, who was the author of two books documenting the struggles of living in poverty in the Hindu communities of Trinidad and Tobago. He moved to Canada in 1968 and was mysteriously murdered while on a visit to Trinidad in 1973.
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.
Earl Wilbert Lovelace is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer. He is particularly recognized for his descriptive, dramatic fiction on Trinidadian culture: "Using Trinidadian dialect patterns and standard English, he probes the paradoxes often inherent in social change as well as the clash between rural and urban cultures." As Bernardine Evaristo notes, "Lovelace is unusual among celebrated Caribbean writers in that he has always lived in Trinidad. Most writers leave to find support for their literary endeavours elsewhere and this, arguably, shapes the literature, especially after long periods of exile. But Lovelace's fiction is deeply embedded in Trinidadian society and is written from the perspective of one whose ties to his homeland have never been broken."
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.
Trinidad and Tobago literature has its roots in oral storytelling among African slaves, the European literary roots of the French creoles and in the religious and folk tales of the Indian indentured immigrants. It blossomed in the 20th century with the writings of C. L. R. James, V. S. Naipaul and Saint Lucian-born Derek Walcott as part of the growth of West Indian literature.
Edgar Austin Mittelholzer was a Guyanese novelist. He is the earliest professional novelist from the English-speaking Caribbean. He was able to develop a readership in Europe and North America, as well as the Caribbean; and established himself in London, where he lived almost exclusively by writing fiction. He is considered "the most prolific novelist to be produced by the Caribbean".
Abdhur Rahman Slade Hopkinson was a Guyana-born poet, playwright, actor and teacher.
Isaiah James Boodhoo was a Trinidadian painter and writer.
Caribbean poetry is vast and rapidly evolving field of poetry written by people from the Caribbean region and the diaspora.
Raymond R. Ramcharitar is a Trinidadian poet, playwright, fiction writer, historian and media and cultural critic.
Kris Rampersad is a writer, researcher, lecturer, journalist, publisher, activist and advocate from Trinidad and Tobago.
Roger Robinson is a British writer, musician and performer who lives between England and Trinidad. He is best known for A Portable Paradise, which won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2019.
The Swinging Bridge is a novel by Ramabai Espinet, published in 2003 by HarperCollins Publishing. In 2004, the novel was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the category of Best First Book. Espinet's novel focuses on a multi-generational Indo-Trinidadian family living in Canada, touching on a number of themes and topics such as gender identity and matrilineal ties.
Marion Patrick Jones was a Trinidadian novelist, whose training was in the fields of library science and social anthropology. She is also known by the names Marion Glean and Marion O'Callaghan. Living in Britain during the 1960s, she was also an activist within the black community. She was the author of two notable novels – Pan Beat, first published in 1973, and J'Ouvert Morning (1976) – and also wrote non-fiction.
James Christopher Aboud is a Trinidad and Tobago judge and poet. He has published two volumes of poetry, The Stone Rose (1986) and Lagahoo Poems (2003). He was appointed as a judge of the High Court and on 30 October 2020, he was appointed to the Court of Appeal.
Rhoda Reddock is a Trinidadian educator and social activist. She has served as founder, chair, adviser, or member of several organizations, such as the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), the Global Fund for Women, and the Regional Advisory Committee of the Global Poosay Coalition on Women and AIDS established by UNAIDS. In 2002 she received the Seventh CARICOM Triennial Award for Women, was Trinidad and Tobago's nominee for the International Women of Courage Award in 2008, and was honoured in her country's National Honour Awards ceremony in 2012 with the Gold Medal for the Development of Women.
Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell, also known as Marina Maxwell was a Trinidadian playwright, performer, poet and novelist. She was associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement in London in the late 1960s, working with Edward Kamau Brathwaite, while back in the Caribbean she was responsible for developing the experimental Yard Theatre, which was "an attempt to place West Indian theatre in the life of the people [...] to find it in the yards where people live and are." The concept of "yard theatre" was considered revolutionary, according to Brathwaite, because it not only "rejected/ignored... traditional/ colonial Euro-American theatre," it also "provided a viable and creative alternative."
Mohamed Ismith Khan, better known as Ismith Khan, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born American author and educator. He is best known for his novel The Jumbie Bird, a semi-autobiographical work which blends Indian and Afro-Caribbean mythology and experience to explore the creation of a new Indo-Caribbean identity.
Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw is a Trinidadian writer and academic who is a professor of French literature and creative writing at the University of the West Indies (UWI). Her writing encompasses both scholarly and creative work, and she has also co-edited several books. Walcott-Hackshaw is the daughter of Nobel Prize laureate Derek Walcott.
