Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell

Last updated
Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell
Born
Marina Jesslyn Crichlow

November 10, 1934
San Fernando, Trinidad, Colony of Trinidad and Tobago, British Empire
DiedSeptember 30, 2024 (age 89)
Curepe, Trinidad Trinidad and Tobago
Nationality Trinidadian Jamaican
Other namesMarina Maxwell
Education University of the West Indies, Michigan State University
Occupation(s)Playwright, performer, poet, novelist, activist, educator
Notable workPlay Mas; About our own business; Chopstix in Mauby; Decades to Ama
SpouseJohn William Maxwell 1934-2010 (divorced)
Children1
Parent(s)Felix Augustus Crichlow, MD, Beryl Archbald Crichlow,

Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell, also known as Marina Maxwell [1] 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, [2] 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." [3] 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." [4] [5]

Contents

Biography

Born in San Fernando, Trinidad, on November 10, 1934, she gained a BA and MSc (Sociology) at UWI Mona and St. Augustine, and an MA at Michigan State University She received a Phd from UWI St Augustine. [6]

In London during the 1960s she was associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), of which she was a former secretary, [7] and participated in 1967 in the CAM symposium entitled "West Indian Theatre" at the West Indian Students' Centre in London. [3] Back in the Caribbean, she established the Yard Theatre, rejecting existing theatrical norms and venues and instead staging plays in back yards in Kingston, Jamaica. [7] Maxwell's Yard Theatre has been described as "one of the most significant experiments in relocating theatre performance to more culturally appropriate sites. Running for several years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Yard Theatre—literally a yard rather than a building—addressed itself to the people of the street, the poorer classes who had no access to a formal theatre often segregated along the lines of race and class." [5]

Her 1968 drama Play Mas′ — one of several Carnival-based plays dating from around that time, including Lennox Brown's Devil Mas′ (1971), Ronald Amoroso's The Master of Carnival (1974) and Mustapha Matura's Rum and Coca Cola (1976), with other productions in the 1980s and '90s by Earl Lovelace, Derek Walcott and Rawle Gibbons similarly drawing on local creative resources [8] — exemplified a belief expressed in her 1970 article "Towards a Revolution in the Arts", in the journal Savacou : "We have only to look around us and listen....[W]e only have to listen across the Caribbean, on the streets, in the Sound System yards, in the Calypso tents, in the rejection statements of the Rastafari--and we can know that we are in the presence of our own gods." [9] She called on the middle-class artists to "stop looking back over their shoulders in some misty distance at Shakespeare, at pleasing the European–oriented audiences with well-modulated verse and slick theatre, and (to) address themselves to experimenting with their own thing, unafraid to fail." [10]

Maxwell is the author of several books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and has also contributed articles and reviews to various publications. [11]

She has served as president of the Writers' Union of Trinidad and Tobago (WUTT), [12] which she founded in 1980. [13]

Selected writings

Related Research Articles

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">University of the West Indies</span> International university in the Caribbean

The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Each country is either a member of the Commonwealth of Nations or a British Overseas Territory.

Ian McDonald is a Caribbean-born poet and writer who describes himself as "Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction." His ancestry on his father's side is Antiguan and Kittitian, and Trinidadian on his mother's side. His only novel, The Humming-Bird Tree, first published in 1969, is considered a classic of Caribbean literature.

Lakshmi Persaud was a Trinidad-born, British-based writer who resided in London, England. She was the author of five novels: Butterfly in the Wind (1990), Sastra (1993), For the Love of My Name (2000), Raise the Lanterns High (2004) and Daughters of Empire (2012).

Merle Hodge is a Trinidadian novelist and literary critic. Her 1970 novel Crick Crack, Monkey is a classic of West Indian literature, and Hodge is acknowledged as the first black Caribbean woman to have published a major work of fiction.

<i>Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root</i>

Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction is an anthology of speculative fiction by Caribbean authors, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and published by Invisible Cities Press in 2000. It was nominated for the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The book is out-of-print. Reviewing it in 2002, James Schellenberg wrote: "Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root is recommended to anyone interested in Caribbean culture. Hopkinson has done wonderful work at organizing and presenting the stories."

<i>Savacou</i> Caribbean literary journal, published 1970–1980

Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement was a journal of literature, new writing and ideas founded in 1970 as a small co-operative venture, led by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.

Cecil Gray was a Caribbean poet, former educator, and the author of several textbooks and anthologies of West Indian literature. He resided in Canada.

The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) was an influential cultural initiative, begun in London, England, in 1966 and active until about 1972, that focused on the works being produced by Caribbean writers, visual artists, poets, dramatists, film makers, actors and musicians. The key people involved in setting up CAM were Edward Kamau Brathwaite, John La Rose and Andrew Salkey. As Angela Cobbinah has written, "the movement had an enormous impact on Caribbean arts in Britain. In its intense five-year existence it set the dominant artistic trends, at the same time forging a bridge between West Indian migrants and those who came to be known as black Britons."

<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.

Gordon Rohlehr was a Guyana-born scholar and critic of West Indian literature, noted for his study of popular culture in the Caribbean, including oral poetry, calypso and cricket. He pioneered the academic and intellectual study of Calypso, tracing its history over several centuries, writing a landmark work entitled Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad (1989), and is considered the world's leading authority on its development.

Vladimir Lucien is a writer, critic and actor from St. Lucia. His first collection of poetry, Sounding Ground (2014), won the Caribbean region's major literary prize for anglophone literature, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, in 2015, making Lucien the youngest ever winner of the prize.

Eric Merton Roach was a Tobagonian poet and playwright. He published some early writing under the pseudonym Merton Maloney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Jenkins</span> Trinidadian writer

Barbara Jenkins is a Trinidadian writer, whose work since 2010 has won several international prizes, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize.

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.

Nicholas Laughlin is a writer and editor from Trinidad and Tobago. He has been editor of The Caribbean Review of Books since 2004, and also edits the arts and travel magazine Caribbean Beat. He is the festival and programme director of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, having worked alongside founder and managing director Marina Salandy-Brown since 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Mohammed</span> A Trinidadian scholar teaching in Cultural Studies located in West Indies

Patricia Mohammed is a Trinidadian scholar, writer, and filmmaker. She is a Professor Emerita of the University of the West Indies (UWI). Her primary research interests are in gender, development and the role of art in the Caribbean imagination. She founded the open-access online peer-reviewed journal Caribbean Review of Gender Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the West Indies at St. Augustine</span>

The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine is a public research university in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. It is one of 5 general campuses in the University of the West Indies system, which are ranked 1st in the Caribbean. It is ranked 1st in Trinidad and Tobago and 28th best in Latin America.

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.

Bridget Brereton is a Trinidad and Tobago-based historian, who is Emerita Professor of History at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. She is the author of works including A History of Modern Trinidad; Law, Justice and Empire: The Colonial Career of John Gorrie, 1829–1892; Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad, 1870–1900 and her articles have been widely published in journals and as book chapters. She edited Volume V of the UNESCO General History of the Caribbean: The Twentieth Century (2004), and has been co-editor of several other books.

References

  1. ↑ The Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT).
  2. ↑ Alison Donnell, Sarah Lawson Welsh (eds), The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature, p. 349.
  3. 1 2 Stephen Voyce, Poetic Community: Avant-Garde activism and Cold War Culture, University of Toronto Press, 2013, pp. 158–159.
  4. ↑ Brathwaite, Edward Kamau (June 1978). "The Love Axe/L: Developing a Caribbean Aesthetic 1962-1974". Bim . 63: 181–192.
  5. 1 2 Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins, Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics, Routledge, 1996, p. 158.
  6. ↑ Maharaj, Maxwell, "Flying T&T flag high", Trinidad and Tobago Guardian , 27 June 2011. She died September 30, 2024
  7. 1 2 Ruth Craggs and Claire Wintle (eds), Cultures of Decolonisation: Transnational productions and practices, 1945-70, Manchester University Press, 2016.
  8. ↑ Martin Banham (ed.), "Trinidad and Tobago", in The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, Cambridge University Press, 1995 edn, p. 1125.
  9. ↑ "Who's got history? Kamau Brathwaite's 'Gods of the Middle Passage'", The Free Library. 1994, University of Oklahoma. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  10. ↑ Quoted in Anson Gonzalez, Bare Boards and a Passion – The Early Theatre of Trinidad and Tobago, 30 November 1973. Via Literatures in English at UWI, St Augustine.
  11. ↑ "Maxwell, Marina Ama Omowale" at WorldCat.
  12. ↑ "Writers' group honours Keens-Douglas", Trinidad and Tobago Newsday , 16 July 2006.
  13. ↑ "Local writer makes her way into Wikipedia". Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. 17 July 2011.
  14. ↑ West Indian Social Science Index, St. Augustine, 1974, p. 59.
  15. ↑ The 8th octave : a magical realism/real maravilloso novel. OCLC   870684536 . Retrieved 18 May 2022– via WorldCat.

Further reading

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.