17 Facts About Kamau Brathwaite

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.

Kamau Brathwaite received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships in 1983, and was a winner of the 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Americas Prize for poetry, and the 1999 Charity Randall Citation for Performance and Written Poetry from the International Poetry Forum.

Kamau Brathwaite often made use of a combination of customized typefaces and spelling, referred to as Sycorax video style.

Lawson Edward Kamau Brathwaite was born in the capital city of Bridgetown, Barbados, to Hilton and Beryl Kamau Brathwaite.

Kamau Brathwaite began his secondary education in 1945 at Harrison College in Bridgetown, and while there wrote essays on jazz for a school newspaper that he started, as well as contributing articles to the literary magazine Bim.

The year 1955 found Kamau Brathwaite working as an education officer in the Gold Coast with the Ministry of Education.

In 1960, while he was on home leave from Ghana, Kamau Brathwaite married Doris Monica Wellcome, a Guyanese graduate in Home Economics and Tropical Nutrition from the University of Leicester, with whom he had a son, Michael.

In 1966, Kamau Brathwaite spearheaded, as co-founder and secretary, the organization of the Caribbean Artists Movement from London, other key figures involved being John La Rose and Andrew Salkey.

Kamau Brathwaite described the years from 1986 to 1990 as a "time of salt," in which he chronicled the death of his wife in 1986, the destruction of his archive in Irish Town, Jamaica, by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, and his near-death experience as a result of a Kingston shooting in 1990.

In 1992 Kamau Brathwaite took up the position of Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, subsequently dividing his residence between Barbados and New York.

In 1994, Kamau Brathwaite was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for his body of work, nominated by Ghanaian poet and author Kofi Awoonor, edging out other nominees including; Toni Morrison, Norman Mailer, and Chinua Achebe.

In 2010, Kamau Brathwaite reported the theft of the medal, as well as other items from his New York City home in the previous four years.

Kamau Brathwaite was Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at New York University and resided in Cow Pasture, Barbados.

Kamau Brathwaite died aged 89 on 4 February 2020, and was accorded an official funeral on 21 February.

Shortly before his death, Kamau Brathwaite was offered and had accepted the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters, presented annually at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

On 22 October 2020, a commissioned portrait of Kamau Brathwaite, painted by Errol Lloyd, was unveiled at his alma mater Pembroke College, Cambridge.