Beverley Ormerod Noakes, A Caribbean Memoir

A Caribbean Memoir of Beverley Ormerod Noakes: Connections, Community and Commitment tells a compelling story of colonial education, the politics of decolonization and the intellectual history of the Caribbean through the (auto)biography of a remarkable woman from Jamaica.Beverley was a pioneer in the development of francophone Caribbean literary studies, introducing the field’s first courses at the University of the West Indies in 1967 and later at the University of Western Australia in 1970. Beverley’s personal meetings and continuing associations with some of the most important writers and thinkers of the francophone Caribbean - including Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, Maryse Condé and Gisèle Pineau – gave her a unique insight into the literary and intellectual history of the period. Alongside this pioneering role, Beverley was intimately involved in the fight to free her sister and brother-in-law, Phyllis and Bernard Coard, who were ministers in a revolutionary government in the Caribbean island of Grenada. When the US invaded Grenada in 1983, Phyllis, Bernard and fifteen others were arrested and sentenced to death, becoming known as the ‘Grenada 17’. For more than two decades, Beverley fought tirelessly for their release and this book gives a never-before-seen view of the ‘Grenada 17’ from within.A Caribbean Memoir of Beverley Ormerod Noakes weaves personal reflections and observations by Beverley, her family, friends, colleagues, students and the Caribbean writers she encounters throughout her life to paint a fascinating picture of a time, multiple places and a remarkable individual.