Guyanese author Carew dies aged 92
Published:
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Renowned Guyanese-born novelist, Jan Rynveld Carew, has died. A playwright and educator also, Carew wrote landmark novels among them Black Midas and Wild Coast—set in Guyana, the Caribbean, Europe and elsewhere.
Carew, born September 24, 1920 at Agricola, East Bank Demerara, wrote for children, the BBC and for the British and Caribbean Pan Africanist Movement.
Carew was described as “the Gentle Revolutionary” for his work in promoting Black activism alongside such stalwarts as WEB DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Cheikh Anta Diop, Kwame Nkrumah and his fellow Guyanese, Ivan Van Sertima, to name just a few.
According to a release from Guyana’s Ministry of Sport and Culture, Carew must also be regarded as a citizen of the world living and producing work from bases in some ten countries across the globe.
The release also notes Carew’s earlier political and philosophical forays culminating perhaps, in his 1964 piece, Moscow Is Not My Mecca. His numerous academic works—research papers, reviews, theses and essays—reflected his determination to re-examine and present alternatives to the Westernised “traditional historiographies and prevailing historical models of the conquest of the Americans”.
Carew’s works, along with Van Sertima’s, are scholarly evidence of Guyanese contributions to the Third World mental re-orientation.
At the age of 17, he left Guyana for the United States, where he studied at Howard University and Western Reserve University (1944-8), the predecessor of Case Western Reserve University. He also went to Charles University in Prague (1948–50) and the Sorbonne in Paris.
He has taught at the University of London, Princeton, Rutgers, Illinois Wesleyan, Hampshire College, Northwestern and Lincoln Universities.
Carew lived in Holland, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Ghana, Canada and the United States. In England, he acted with Sir Laurence Olivier and edited the Kensington Post.
(SKN News)
Published:
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Renowned Guyanese-born novelist, Jan Rynveld Carew, has died. A playwright and educator also, Carew wrote landmark novels among them Black Midas and Wild Coast—set in Guyana, the Caribbean, Europe and elsewhere.
Carew, born September 24, 1920 at Agricola, East Bank Demerara, wrote for children, the BBC and for the British and Caribbean Pan Africanist Movement.
Carew was described as “the Gentle Revolutionary” for his work in promoting Black activism alongside such stalwarts as WEB DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Cheikh Anta Diop, Kwame Nkrumah and his fellow Guyanese, Ivan Van Sertima, to name just a few.
According to a release from Guyana’s Ministry of Sport and Culture, Carew must also be regarded as a citizen of the world living and producing work from bases in some ten countries across the globe.
The release also notes Carew’s earlier political and philosophical forays culminating perhaps, in his 1964 piece, Moscow Is Not My Mecca. His numerous academic works—research papers, reviews, theses and essays—reflected his determination to re-examine and present alternatives to the Westernised “traditional historiographies and prevailing historical models of the conquest of the Americans”.
Carew’s works, along with Van Sertima’s, are scholarly evidence of Guyanese contributions to the Third World mental re-orientation.
At the age of 17, he left Guyana for the United States, where he studied at Howard University and Western Reserve University (1944-8), the predecessor of Case Western Reserve University. He also went to Charles University in Prague (1948–50) and the Sorbonne in Paris.
He has taught at the University of London, Princeton, Rutgers, Illinois Wesleyan, Hampshire College, Northwestern and Lincoln Universities.
Carew lived in Holland, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Ghana, Canada and the United States. In England, he acted with Sir Laurence Olivier and edited the Kensington Post.
(SKN News)