Arrivants

Kamau Brathwaite (1930–2020) was a vitally important Caribbean poet and critic who wrote on the experience of Black cultural life throughout the worldwide African diaspora. Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, and educated in Barbados and England, Brathwaite received the Griffin Prize as well as Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships. He was for many years a professor of Comparative Literature at New York University and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sussex in 2002.

"This epic trilogy traces the migrations of African peoples in and from the African continent, through the sufferings of the Middle Passage and slavery, and dramatizes 20th-century journeys to the UK, France and the US in search of economic and psychic survival. The Arrivants exemplified Brathwaite’s ambition to create a distinctively Caribbean form of poetry, which would celebrate Caribbean voices and language, as well as African and Caribbean rhythms evoking Ghanaian talking drums, calypso, reggae, jazz and blues."