Austin Clarke – författare

This is the first book in Austin Clarke’s acclaimed trilogy about a group of West Indian domestics, their friends, lovers, spouses and employers living in Toronto. In rich, exuberant language, the novel illuminates the world of Bernice Leach, a Barbadian woman, working in the infamous ‘Canadian Domestic Scheme’ as a live-in maid. Oddly situated in the employ of the Burrmanns, a wealthy Jewish-Canadian couple, Bernice becomes privy to some household secrets which serve both she and her friend Dots with cause for amusement and outrage. And when Bernice’s sister Estelle comes over, apparently on holiday from Barbados, her stay has first comic, then tragic results. The Meeting Point is a poignant study of the clashes, tensions and sheer comedy resulting from the confrontation of opposing lifestyles and cultures. Set in the 1950s, the novel brilliantly captures a portrait of a vital city as a it faces, for the first time, a significant black immigrant presence upon its landscape.  “Masterful.” —The New York Times “A beautiful, comic, innovative, spellbinding and tragic novel. . . . A treat from beginning to end.” —The Boston Globe “Zings with life [and] a humorous appreciation of the injustices of today’s world.” —St. Catherine’s Standard

"The West Indians'' primitive vitality and humanity in Storm of Fortune is rendered in ... some of the most delightful dialogue to see print in many a long year." -Library Journal

This is Austin Clarke''s acclaimed trilogy about a group of West Indian domestics, their friends, lovers, spouses, and employers living in Toronto. In rich, exuberant language, Clarke illuminates a world inhabited by earthy, garrulous, but terribly isolated people, all living, working and struggling with the alien, White, Canadian culture. Dominated by warm, superbly drawn characters and capped by vibrant, unerring dialogue, The Toronto Trilogy is a devastating and brilliant commentary on the quest for success in North America, and it established Austin Clarke as a major Canadian writer.

2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature — Longlisted2016 RBC Taylor Prize — LonglistedThe unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize–winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called “Canada’s first multicultural writer.”Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In ’Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the ’60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers.Clarke has been called Canada’s first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he ’members them.

2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature - Longlisted2016 RBC Taylor Prize - LonglistedThe unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize-winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called "e;Canada's first multicultural writer."e;Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In 'Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the '60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers.Clarke has been called Canada's first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he 'members them.

2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature - Longlisted2016 RBC Taylor Prize - LonglistedThe unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize-winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called "e;Canada's first multicultural writer."e;Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In 'Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the '60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers.Clarke has been called Canada's first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he 'members them.

Gathered together are three extraordinary books by renowned storyteller and memoirist Austin Clarke. Membering, Clarke s breathtaking memoir, spans over fifty years of his life as a writer, chronicling his coming to Canada in the fifties, formative experiences with Malcolm X, Chinua Achebe, and LeRoi Jones, and bursting with cultural insights and poignant memories from a narrative master. In The Polished Hoe, winner of the Giller Prize and the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize, when an elderly Bimshire village woman calls the police to confess to a murder, the result is a shattering all-night vigil that brings together elements of the African diaspora in one epic sweep. Set on the post-colonial West Indian island of Bimshire in 1952, The Polished Hoe unravels over the course of 24 hours but spans the lifetime of one woman and the collective experience of a society informed by slavery.Choosing His Coffin is a selection of Clarke s finest work from more than forty years of storytelling, drawing on his Caribbean roots and his years in Canada. These stories range in theme from growing up in West Indian society and what it means to be black in both the United States and Canada to surviving as an immigrant in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture.

Now available after over four decades, the first collection of short fiction from bestselling author and Barbadian-born Canadian luminary Austin Clarke — winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Trillium Book Award for his novel The Polished Hoe — is a vital, lyrical, and provocative exploration of the Black immigrant experience in Canada. Originally issued in 1971, Austin Clarke’s first published collection of eleven remarkable stories showcases his groundbreaking approach to chronicling the Caribbean diaspora experience in Canada. Characters move through the mire of working life, of establishing a home for themselves, of reconciling with what and who they left behind — all the while contending with a place in which their bone-chilling reception is both social and atmospheric. In lyrical, often racy, and wholly unforgettable prose, Clarke portrays a set of provocative, scintillating portraits of the psychological realities faced by people of colour in a society so often lauded for its geniality and openness.

Two black men: the poet, an elder and veteran of last century''s civil rights movement; and a nameless youth, swaggering and beltless, seduced by guns-and-gangs and expensive cars, and perpetually targeted by police. They are brothers by the colour of their skin, neighbours in the same "crib," yet separated by a lifetime of experience. Invoking memories of his personal encounters with leaders like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and Amiri Baraka, the poet berates his heir for dropping the torch, and regrets his own failure to protect, inspire and speak out on the young man?s behalf. In the tradition of Bob Marley''s "Redemption Song," In Your Crib is a lyrical plea, both indictment and lamentation, and a powerful account of the ongoing struggle for racial equality.

A major voice of twentieth-century Irish poetry, Austin Clarke reshaped the country's literary landscape through his groundbreaking translations from the Irish and his revival of Irish-language metres andforms - work that continues to influence poets today and remains among the best-loved poems in Ireland.This new selection brings Clarke into vivid focus as a poet of 'othervoices', reaching across time and place to recover what history tried to silence. Once censored for his fearless critique of the Catholic state, Clarke's writing is marked by piercing, clear narrative and satire. As vital and enduring as Patrick Kavanagh, Thomas Kinsella, or Seamus Heaney, this lifetime's work presents a continually shrewd perspective on Irish literary history.

Austin Clarke's classic story of British colonial education is the subject of Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack. It is the story of a boy whose mother struggled against seemingly impossible odds to give her son the best available education. Generations of Barbadians, and West Indians, will identify with young Austin Clarke, from the absentee father to the challenges of a daily life in a society based on colour and class prejudice and a rigid set of customs and rules imported from England and imposed on Caribbean society. Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack is more than a memoir; it provides a rare in-depth look into the nature of the colonial condition, told with humour, wit and an authentic Bajan voice.