Blog

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

Zadie Smith, A Life of Shifting Geographies

Zadie Smith, photographed by Dominique Nabokov

Zadie Smith was born on 25^th October 1975, in Willesden, north-west London. After attending local state schools, Smith read English literature at King’s College, Cambridge, where she was published twice in student literature anthology, The Mays. After her short stories caught the attention of publishers in her final year at Cambridge, she reportedly received a six-figure advance for White Teeth (2000), her debut novel. Both White Teeth and Smith’s subsequent novels have been praised for their expansive geographies and attention to location; The Autograph Man (2002) on London; On Beauty (2006), on a British-American family living outside Boston; NW (2012), set in Brent, the borough in which she grew up; and Swing Time (2016) that crossed London, New York and West Africa.

Smith became tenured professor of fiction at New York University in 2010, and spent much of the following decade living between New York and London. In 2020, she moved back to Kilburn, where she lives with her husband and two children; during the pandemic, Smith also published Intimations (2020), an essay collection on living in lockdown amidst a time of reflection on race and society.

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

Samuel Selvon: A Life in Pictures

Pauline Henriques and Samuel Selvon reading a story on the BBC in 1952, during the weekly Caribbean Voices segment.

A 2016 photo of Naparima College, San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. After completing his primary education, Samuel Selvon attended school here from 1937-1938. He left in 1938, without having completed his school certificate examination.

A photo of Susamachar Presbyterian Church, taken in 2016. In 1947, Samuel Selvon married his first wife, Draupadi Persaud, at this San Fernando church.

A 2013 photo of India House, the building where the High Commission of India in London is located. The building was completed in 1930. When Samuel Selvon first moved to London in 1950, he worked as a clerk in this building.

The cover of A Brighter Sun, Samuel Selvon’s first novel. The novel was published in 1952.

The 1956 cover of The Lonely Londoners. Popularly considered Samuel Selvon’s best novel, this book follows a group of West Indian immigrants as they navigate an often hostile London environment. This novel was also made famous by Selvon’s choice to use dialect in both the dialogue and the narration of the novel.

A 1979 aerial photo of the University of Victoria campus. After Samuel Selvon moved to Canada in 1978 with his second wife, Althea Daroux, and his family, he took up a position teaching creative writing as a visiting professor at this university.

Samuel Selvon in his office at the University of Calgary. Before becoming a writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary, Samuel Selvon worked for months as a janitor at the university.

This 1974 photo of Samuel Selvon, John La Rose, and Andrew Salkey is entited “The Lime.” La Rose and Salkey were founding members of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), which was organized in London and was active from 1966-1972. The Trinidad-born photographer, Horace Ové, is known as one of the leading Black independent filmmakers in post-war Britain. He was the first Black British filmmaker to direct a feature-length film, Pressure (1975).

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

Samuel Selvon Timeline

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

Samuel Selvon: A Brief Biography of a Trinidadian Expatriate

Samuel Selvon was born on May 20, 1923 in Trinidad, the sixth of seven children born to Bertwyn Selvon, an Indian cocoa merchant, and Daisy Dickson, a biracial Anglo-Indian. Selvon grew up in a middle-class home; after he completed his primary education in 1937, he attended Naparima College. However, Selvon left the college in 1938, without taking the school certificate examination. He enlisted in the Trinidad Royal Navy Reserve in 1939 and became a wireless operator. Thereafter, he moved to the Port of Spain where he worked for the Trinidad Guardian. He also wrote stories and columns under several pseudonyms, including Ack-Ack, Michael Wentworth, and Esses. In 1947, Selvon married Draupadi Persaud, with whom he had one child, born after the couple relocated to London in 1950. In London, Selvon worked as a clerk for the Indian Embassy, and wrote in his spare time. His first novel, A Brighter Sun, was published in 1952. This debut novel was followed by the publication of several more novels (including The Lonely Londoners in 1956), a collection of short stories entitled Ways of Sunlight (1958), and a collection of plays named Highway in the Sun (1991). In 1962, Selvon and Persaud divorced, and in 1963, Selvon married Althea Daroux, with whom he had three children. From 1975-1977, Selvon held a fellowship in creative writing at Dundee University. In 1978, Selvon moved to Canada, where Daroux had relatives. He took up writer-in-residence appointments at the universities of Victoria, Winnipeg, Alberta, and Calgary (where he worked for a few months as a janitor when he first arrived in Canada). A lifelong smoker, Selvon died of respiratory failure due to chronic lung disease on April 16, 1994.

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

Monica Ali: A Life in Pictures

A main street in Bolton, Ali’s hometown after she moved from Dhaka.

Ali graduated from Wadham College, Oxford University with a degree in PPE.

Monica Ali with her two children, Shumi and Felix.

The book cover for Ali’s first novel, Brick Lane.

A still from the film adaptation of Ali’s novel.

Ali’s second novel, Alentejo Blue, was set in this idyllic Portuguese town where Ali owns a holiday home.

Book cover for Ali’s third novel, In the Kitchen.

Ali speaks at the Oxford Union Society “People who shape our world” on “immigration of good for Britain”.

April 28, 2021August 14, 2021

The Life of Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen is a British filmmaker and artist. McQueen was born on October 9, 1969 in Ealing, a district in West London. His parents are both Caribbean immigrants, his mother from Trinidad and his father from Grenada. McQueen attended Drayton Manor High School in Ealing. McQueen has reflected on the racist policies that relegated him and other students with learning challenges (McQueen was dyslexic) to an academic track for those supposedly destined for manual labor. “At 13 years old, you are marked, you are dead, that’s your future,” McQueen said. Nevertheless, he found his love and skill for visual arts, which granted him access to more educational opportunities. McQueen attended Chelsea College of Art and then Goldsmiths College at the University of London, which he graduated from in 1993. At Goldsmiths, McQueen also began to explore his passion for film. That spark led him to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Dissatisfied with the stiff approach to filmmaking, McQueen left Tisch after three months. McQueen’s films have explored a wide range of issues, from the 1981 Irish hunger strike to American slavery to the lives of Caribbean immigrants in London. McQueen has won numerous awards for his art and filmmaking, including the Turner Prize in 1999 for Deadpan, OBE and CBE medals, the 2008 Caméra d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger, and an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2014 Oscars for 12 Years a Slave. McQueen’s most recent work, Small Axe, is an anthology film series depicting Black British life from the 1960s to the 1980s. McQueen lives in Amsterdam with his wife and two children.