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Erna Brodber Caribbean literature

Activism

Following Jamaica's Independence in 1962 Brodber discusses the 1960s and the 1970s as crucial intellectually formative years. Brodber became heavily influenced by Pan-Africanism as its principles continue to shape her literary and activist work. Her adherence to the black diaspora make her a prominent figure in Pan-Africanist thought and practice. Additionally, while studying in the United states, Brodber became exposed to both the black power movement and the womens liberations movement. Brodbers exposure to both movements and Pan-Africanism shaped her interest in social research. Brodber claims "My work, fiction and non-fiction, is devoted to helping Africans of the diaspora to understand themselves and hopefully to consequently undertake with more clarity the job of social (re)construction which we have to do. To better communicate with this target group, I use folk songs, etc., which are well known within the culture to make my points and to inform a group often far from archival data. I inject information which I think this group needs to have, and which I arrive at from my investigations, into my novels."

Biography

Born in the farming village of Woodside, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, she gained a B.A. from the University College of the West Indies, followed by an M.Sc and Ph.D, and has received a predoctoral fellowship in psychiatric anthropology. She subsequently worked as a civil servant, teacher, sociology lecturer, and researcher at the Institute for Social and Economic Research in the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica. During her time at ISER Brodber worked to collect the oral histories of her elder in rural Jamaica, her work subsequently inspired her later novel, Louisiana. After working at the university, Brodber left to work full-time in her home community of Woodside.

She is the author of five novels: Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994), The Rainmaker's Mistake (2007), and Nothing's Mat (2014). Brodber works as a freelance writer, researcher and lecturer in Jamaica. She has received many awards, including the Gold Musgrave medal three times: once from the Institute of Jamaica for work in literature, once from the government of Jamaica for community work, and once from the government of the Netherlands for work in literature and orature. Brodber is currently Writer in Residence at the University of the West Indies.

Education

1960-1963 Univeristy College of the West Indies B.A. in History

1967 University of Washington Ford Foundation Fellowship

1979 Commonwealth Fellowship

1967 University College of the West Indies, Kingston M.Sc. Sociology

1985 University of Sussex Ph.D. in History

Awards and Honors

Brodber won the Postgraduate award from the University of the West Indies in 1964.She won the Caribbean and Canadian regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989 for Myal. Brodber received the Fullbright Fellowship in 1990. In 1999 she received the Jamaican Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature. She received a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in 2017.

Biblography

Novels

• Nothing's Mat (University of West Indies Press, 2014), ISBN 978-9766404949
• The Rainmaker's Mistake (New Beacon Books, 2007), ISBN 978-1873201206
• Louisiana (New Beacon Books, 1994)
• Myal: A Novel (New Beacon Books, 1988), ISBN 978-0901241863
• Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (New Beacon Books, 1980)

Articles for the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Jamaica

• "Abandonment of Children in Jamaica" (1974)
• "Yards in the City of Kingston" (1975)
• "Reggae and Cultural Identity in Jamaica" (1981)
• "Perceptions of Caribbean Women: Toward a Documentation of Stereotypes" (1982)

Non-fiction

• Woodside, Pear Tree Grove P.O. (University of the West Indies Press, 2004), ISBN 978-9766401528
• The Second Generation of Freemen in Jamaica, 19071944 (University Press of Florida, 2004), ISBN 978-0-8130-2759-3
• The Continent of Black Consciousness: On the History ofReference' the African Diaspora from Slavery to the Present (New Beacon Books,Reverence's 2003), ISBN 978-1-873201-17-6

Manuscript Collections

• University of the West Indies, Kingston

Critical Studies

• Healing Narratives: Women Writers Curing Cultural Disease by Gay Wilent, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Other

• Abandonment of Children in Jamaica. Mona, Jamaica, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1974.

• Yards in the City of Kingston. Mona, Jamaica, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1975.

• Perceptions of Caribbean Women: Towards a Documentation of Stereotypes. Mona, Jamaica, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1982.

• Rural-Urban Migration and the Jamaican Child. Santiago, Chile, UNESCO, Regional Office for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1986.

ersity of the West Indies, Kingston

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