Clarke, Austin

July 6, 1934

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, born in Barbados, is one of the most prolific Canadian writers of Afro-Caribbean descent; he is considered the godfather of Caribbean-Canadian writing. His body of work spans four decades of literary productivity (including ten novels, six short story collections, three memoirs, and a number of newspaper articles and essays) and helps to define and nuance discussions about the African diaspora, the immigrant experience, ethnicity, and the multicultural, international contexts of his writing. As the foremost writer on Afro-Caribbean/Canadian subjects, Clarke was the first to explore the conditions of labor and cultural adjustment for Caribbean women who moved to Canada to work as domestic helpers in the 1950s. The major themes of the Toronto trilogy (The Meeting Point [1967], Storm of Fortune [1971], and The Bigger Light [1975]), and his other Canadian-based novels and short stories, include cultural dislocation and adjustment, race, class and cultural hegemony, and issues of gender. In both his Canadian and Caribbean writing, Clarke explores the postcolonial dilemmas of identity, poverty, exile, belonging, and nationhood, while celebrating cultural resuscitation in the New World through Afro-Caribbean speech rituals.

Prestigious awards conferred on Clarke signify his lifelong contribution to the literary arts in Canada and the Caribbean. He won the 1999 W. O. Mitchell Prize for his outstanding body of work and for his mentorship of young writers, the 2002 Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award, and the 2003 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book (for The Polished Hoe). This novel, which chronicles the epic story of colonial atrocities on the lives of Afro-Caribbean peoples via the confessions of murder by the mistress of a plantation owner, represents the pinnacle of Clarke's literary efforts up to this point. Other accolades include the 1980 Casas de las Americas Prize (for Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack ), the 1998 Rogers Communications Writers' Trust Prize (for The Origin of Waves ), 1999 nominations for the James Beard Award (for Pigtails 'n Breadfruit: The Rituals of Slave Food: A Barbadian Memoir ), and the conferment of honorary doctorates and national awards in Canada and Barbados. In addition, his novel The Question (1999) was a finalist for the Governor General's Award.

Clarke's commitment to the African diasporic community goes beyond his literary engagement. His role as journalist, activist (he organized protests against South African apartheid and its subtle resonance in Canada), or representative of disadvantaged groups on civic boards confirm his impressive support of the causes and issues of Africans in the diaspora. Prior to his short, controversial reign beginning in 1975 as manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados—which made him the satiric subject of a calypso song and led to the subsequent censorship of his political thriller, The Prime Minister (1977), based on that period—he had already made his mark at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As a broadcast journalist, he brought to the Canadian public a magnified focus on the American civil rights movement through interviews with figures like Malcolm X and documentaries on places such as Harlem. Moreover, he stoutly debated cultural and racial issues in numerous newspaper articles in both Barbados and Canada, and he represented the disenfranchised on the Metro Toronto Library Board, the Ontario Board of Censors, and the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. From watchman to government advisor, stagehand to cultural attaché, from journalist to successful writer, and from janitor to eminent statesman, Clarke, the "lyrical Blues geographer," charts the African diasporic journey as both a life of struggle and a life of triumph (Walcott, p. 13).

See also Canada, Blacks in; Canadian Writers in English; Caribbean/North American Writers (Contemporary)

Bibliography

Algoo-Baksh, Stella. Austin C. Clarke: A Biography. Toronto: ECW Press, 1994.

Brown, Lloyd W. El Dorado and Paradise: Canada and the Caribbean in Austin Clarke's Fiction. London, Canada: Centre for Social and Humanistic Studies, University of Western Ontario, 1989.

Clarke, Austin. A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1994.

Walcott, Rinaldo. "Preface." In The Austin Clarke Reader, edited by Barry Callaghan. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1996.

michael a. bucknor (2005)