(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''WHAT IS THE FICTIONAL GENRE?''//]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Firstly, we shall explore what exactly the fictional genre is.
The fictional genre is a type of literature that is either created from the imagination (not presented as facts) or it could be based on a true story or situation.
Furthermore, fiction tends to follows unconventional plot structures and contains embedded symbolism and allegory. Characters in literary fiction usually takes priority over the main plot. In doing this it gives more room for the characters backstory and the point-of-view of the novel’s main character.
According to MasterClass.com there are 9 types of Genre Fiction. These include:
* Mystery: Which is an exciting book usual about murder.
* Thriller: Closely related to mysteries, thriller/horror is about building suspense and shock.
* Romance: Which as the name suggest is about a love story.
* Science Fiction: Which are frequently set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future, imagine the worlds of distant futures or alternate universes.
* Fantasy: Which typically comprises of Mythological creatures and medieval-style kingdoms spread across imaginary lands.
* Young Adult: These coming-of-age stories differ from their middle-grade counterparts in that they use more sophisticated language and deal with more intense themes.
* Historical Fiction: Imagining the lives of the characters defined by historical events.
* Magical realism: Depicts the real world as having undercurrent of magic or fantasy.
* Speculative fiction: are stories based on familiar reality that is twisted in some meaningful way ]
Now let us move into [[The Evolution of Fiction from Caribbean Authors from the 1940's]].(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''The Evolution of Fiction from Caribbean Authors from the 1940's.''//]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Back in 1948 to 1971, there were a group of people called the Windrush generation. It relates to the MV Empire Windrush, which docked in Tilbury on June 22, 1948. This ship brought people from Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and other islands, to help fill post-war UK labor shortages.
According to BBC.com, "It is unclear how many people belong to the Windrush generation, but they are thought to be in their thousands." This importation of workers ended with the 1971 Immigration Act when Commonwealth citizens already living in the UK were given indefinite leave to remain.
This was the reason why so many Caribbean books were first published in the UK.
In addition, the Caribbean literary climate of the early to mid-twentieth century presented a significant problem for those invested in producing a classical model of literary production: finding a readership in geographical spaces of the region splintered against readers found in textual or distant foreign places (England or the United States).
Shortly before the Windrush began the BBC Empire Service began broadcasting in 1932 and reached viewers as far afield as Australia, India, South Africa, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Canada after around ten years. The Service was transmitted mostly in English, with the ideological goal of strengthening ties between Britain, her colonies, and dominions through news coverage and entertainment. Una Marson, a Jamaican poet, was tasked with creating a broadcast program to raise morale throughout the colonies, but she also managed to maintain a feeling of 'black independence' and regional identity. Marson was able to create a new show, 'Caribbean Voices,' broadcast in 1943, based in part on Voice, a BBC poetry magazine whose goal was to provide a wider audience for the work of young, relatively unknown poets. It began with 20-minute radio broadcasts but subsequently grew to one hour. (Low)
The BBC's 'Caribbean Voices' program offered a natural point of contact and aid for writers just starting in their postwar literary careers. With weekly broadcast slots from 1943 to 1958, it is widely considered as having played an important role in the development of Anglophone Caribbean literature, particularly in encouraging writers to follow the literary profession. The radio broadcast helped to sustain the few publishing outlets that existed in Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, and Jamaica.
Marson ran the show until she returned to Jamaica in 1946, and she used published material in her Caribbean broadcasts. When Marson left, Mary Treadgold was chosen interim caretaker until Henry Swanzy, a G.O.S. employee, could take over as editor and producer. (Low)
The show was edited and transmitted from London, and it featured both creative contents read by West Indians in the city and critical assessments and analyses by English critics such as Roy Fuller, Arthur Calder Marshall, and Stephen Spender. This brought the literary worlds of the English-speaking Caribbean and London together. 'Caribbean Voices' not only requested, paid for, and disseminated new work, but also fostered relationships and interest among area writers, helping to shape a literary culture. Swanzy sought and compensated for unpublished work, and 'Caribbean Voices' became especially important for the development of regional creative writing, cultivating strong links with regional literary publications such as Bim. (Low)
Swanzy, who was the show's longest-serving editor from 1946 to 1954, was able to stamp his brand on it and consolidate many of its charms. He was especially interested in nurturing a regional literary culture, so he paid for new content, evaluated and commented on entries, and returned some with ideas for development. (Low)
Swanzy's employment of Caribbean authors and performers as readers contributed to a tiny but pleasant source of money for London ex-pats. Swanzy aimed to find publication channels for some of the manuscripts submitted to the show, in addition to providing a platform for their creative work or compensating for their on-air performances. This was also true of Arthur Calder Marshall, who became a regular critic on the show. According to correspondence between Swanzy and Gladys Lindo, when submissions were deemed potentially publishable but could not be used on 'Caribbean Voices' for whatever reason, attempts were made to send them to other broadcast or theatrical outlets, potential publishers, or literary agents in London. Jan Williams, Ernest Carr, Derek Walcott, Sam Selvon, and George Lamming were among those who contributed. (Low)]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[ [[Derek Walcott]]
[[George Lamming]]
[[Edward Kamau Brathwaite]]
[[V.S. Naipaul]]
[[Michael Anthony]]
[[Jamaica Kincaid]]
[[Kenneth Ramchand]]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''Derek Walcott''//
<img src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/01/25/gettyimages-525633996_custom-97209ef15a19ac4db68bdf11f476e8df32e35f80.jpg" width="400px" height="550px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Derek Alton Walcott, more commonly known as Derek Walcott was born on January 23, 1930, in Castries, Saint Lucia, and died on March 17, 2017, in Cap Estate. He was a West Indian poet and playwriter noted for works that explore the Caribbean cultural experience. (Britannica)
Walcott attended St. Mary's College in Saint Lucia and the University of the West Indies in Jamaica for his education. He began composing poems at a young age, taught at schools in Saint Lucia and Grenada, and wrote essays and reviews for Trinidad and Jamaican journals. His plays were first staged in Saint Lucia in 1950, and he studied theatre in New York City from 1958–59. He then resided in Trinidad and the United States, where he taught for a year at Boston University. In 1992, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Britannica)
The London Magazine approved six of Walcott's poems for publication in June 1960, four of which appeared in the magazine's August edition. This was Walcott's first appearance in print in the United Kingdom, and it was followed by 'In a Green Night,' published in the New Statesman in September of the same year. The next month, the London Magazine published additional verse; the new series of the London Magazine, which debuted in April 1961, had two of Walcott's poems. As Walcott submitted plays and poetry to Ross to view and transmit to interested persons, a regular stream of literature moved between Trinidad and London. (Low)
Plomer, an accomplished poet and critic who had served on the Arts Council and the London Magazine's advisory board, noted that Walcott had 'extraordinary abilities and accomplishment,' and that there was a 'strong probability of rapid recognition and a potential of long-term gain.' (Low)
In London, Walcott would likewise have no trouble finding a reputable publisher. Walcott was dubbed the finest English poet of his generation.]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''George Lamming''//
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/George_Lamming.jpg"width="400px" height="550px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[George William Lamming was born on June 8, 1927, in Carrington Village, Barbados, near Bridgetown. He is a West Indian author and essayist who has written about Caribbean decolonization and rebuilding. (Britannica)
Lamming studied at Combermere High School under Frank Collymore, the editor of the Caribbean literary journal Bim, which published some of Lamming's early work. Lamming left Barbados in 1946 and worked as a teacher in Trinidad before moving to England. In the Castle of My Skin 1953, his critically praised debut novel, is an autobiographical bildungsroman set against the backdrop of growing nationalism in the British Caribbean colonies in the 1930s and 1940s.
Lamming continued to investigate decolonization in his subsequent three novels: The Emigrants (1954), a despondent, fragmentary work about Caribbean immigrants in postwar England; Of Age and Innocence (1958), a microcosmic look at the problems of political independence; and Season of Adventure (1960), in which a West Indian woman discovers her African heritage. The Pleasures of Exile (1960) is an essay collection that addresses Caribbean politics, race, and culture in a global setting. Water with Berries (1971), a political allegory based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Natives of My Person (1971), about 16th-century explorers in the West Indies, were among Lamming's later works. His poems and short tales have appeared in anthologies, and Conversations, a collection of essays and interviews, was released in 1992. (Britannica)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''Edward Kamau Brathwaite''//
<img src="https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/kamay-brathwaite.jpg" width="400px" height="350px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Kamau Brathwaite was born on May 11, 1930, in Bridgetown, Barbados, and died on February 4, 2020, in Barbados. He was originally called Lawson Edward Brathwaite and was also published as Edward Brathwaite and Edward Kamau Brathwaite. He was a Barbadian novelist known for his extensive and nuanced examinations of the African and indigenous foundations of Caribbean culture. (Britannica)
Brathwaite attended Harrison College in Barbados and Pembroke College in Cambridge. He conducted doctoral studies at the University of Sussex after working for the Education Ministry of what is now Ghana from 1955 to 1962. Since 1963, he has mostly taught at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.
Jon Stallworthy had seen Brathwaite sing at the Commonwealth 1965 'Verse and Voice' Poetry Festival in London and was thrilled by his performance, so he was determined not to turn him down despite the amount of time it generally took the Press to make its choices. After receiving formal approval from the Delegates, Stallworthy wrote to James Currey, a Three Crowns editor at the time, to suggest Brathwaite's possible inclusion in the Series based on the prospect that his expected educational sales would be 'considerable' in the West Indies and Africa, and'respectable' in the UK and North America. Currey's response was to wait and see how Rights performed before doing a Three Crowns trilogy of Brathwaite's poetry in one volume; the trilogy, The Arrivants, was released in 1973 as an Oxford Paperback. (Low)
Much like reviewers and publishers championed Walcott, and despite Brathwaite's literary and political objectives at the time, his reception by editors and publishers' readers situates his work inside a metropolitan aesthetic, even as they note deviations and variances from 'perfectly made urns.' (Low)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''V.S. Naipaul''//
<img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/15/196015-050-6A423C9A/VS-Naipaul-2014.jpg" width="400px" height="500px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[V.S. Naipaul, the full name Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, was born in Trinidad on August 17, 1932, and died in London, England on August 11, 2018. He was a Trinidadian writer of Indian heritage well known for his bleak tales set in underdeveloped countries. (Britannica)
Naipaul, who was descended from Hindu Indians who had moved to Trinidad as indentured slaves, left Trinidad in 1950 to attend the University of Oxford. He eventually resided in England, though he traveled frequently after that. His first three works (The Mystic Masseur, 1958, Miguel Street, 1959) are sardonic and humorous depictions of life in the Caribbean. His fourth novel, A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), likewise set in Trinidad, was a considerably more significant work that earned him widespread acclaim. It focuses on the main character's desire to develop his unique identity and establish his independence through the purchase of his own home.
Naipaul's subsequent books were placed in other countries, but the themes of personal and communal estrangement remained the same. Naipaul's later books were placed in different countries but continued to examine the psychological and societal alienation felt by emerging nations striving to merge their native and Western-colonial heritages. The three stories in In a Free State (1971), which won the Booker Prize in the United Kingdom, are set in various countries; Guerrillas (1975) is a depressing look at an abortive uprising on a Caribbean island, and A Bend in the River (1979) examines the uncertain future of a newly independent state in Central Africa. A Way in the World (1994) is an essay-style novel that examines how history shapes people's personalities. Other works by Naipaul include The Mimic Men (1967) and The Enigma of Arrival (1968). (1987). Naipaul was honored by the Swedish Academy for his disclosures of "suppressed histories." Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001 for his exposes of "suppressed histories" by the Swedish Academy. (Britannica)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''Michael Anthony''//
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Michael_Anthony_%282020%29.jpg/330px-Michael_Anthony_%282020%29.jpg" width="400px" height="300px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Michael Anthony was born in Mayaro, Trinidad, and Tobago, on February 10, 1932. He was a West Indian novelist who wrote novels, short tales, and travelogues on household life in Trinidad. His writings were frequently coming-of-age stories starring adolescent characters from his native town of Mayaro, written in a minimalist way. (Britannica)
Anthony left Trinidad in the mid-1950s to reside in England, where he worked at the Reuters News Agency and began his writing career. His debut novel, The Games Were Coming (1963), is about Leon, an austere young bike who skips the yearly carnival to train for a race. The Year in San Fernando (1965) is a first-person story about the maturity of Francis, a youngster who leaves Mayaro to work as a servant in the city of San Fernando. Green Days by the River (1967), another self-narrated narrative, follows the maturation of a little kid named Shellie.
Anthony spent two years in Brazil, where he set his sixth novel, King of the Masquerade, before returning to Trinidad in 1970 to work as an editor and diplomat. Streets of Conflict (1976), All That Glitters (1981), In the Heat of the Day (1996), High Tide of Intrigue (2001), and The Sound of Marching Feet (2001) are among his later books. Michael Anthony's Tales for Young and Old (1967), Cricket in the Road (1973), Sandra Street and Other Stories (1973), Folk Tales and Fantasies (1976), and The Chieftain's Carnival and Other Stories (1977) are among his short story collections. In addition, he published many historical and travel books on Trinidad. The Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago is one of them (1997). (Britannica)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](link: "Map Link")[(goto-url:'https://arcg.is/09eWXX')]
[[Bibliography]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]] (align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "fiction". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Jan. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/fiction-literature. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Esprit, Schuyler Kirshten. OCCASIONS FOR READING LITERARY ENCOUNTERS AND THE MAKING OF THE WEST INDIES. 2011. Accessed 30 May 2022
Low, Gail. The Pleasures of Exile Publishing Anglophone Caribbean Writing in Postwar Britain. Accessed 15 June 2022.
MasterClass staff. “19 Types of Book Genres: List of Popular Fiction Genres.” MasterClass, 17 Nov. 2021, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/an-overview-of-fiction-genres. Accessed 11 June 2022
BBC. “Windrush Generation: Who Are They and Why Are They Facing Problems?” BBC News, 24 Nov. 2021. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Jamaica Kincaid". Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 May. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jamaica-Kincaid. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Michael Anthony". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Feb. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Anthony-West-Indian-author. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "V.S. Naipaul". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Aug. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/V-S-Naipaul. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Kamau Brathwaite". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 May. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamau-Brathwaite. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "George Lamming". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Jun. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Lamming. Accessed 20 June 2022.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Derek Walcott". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Mar. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Derek-Walcott. Accessed 20 June 2022.
“Kenneth Ramchand.” Wikipedia, 29 Sept. 2021. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenneth_Ramchand&oldid=1047156986. Accessed 20 June 2022
](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''Jamaica Kincaid''//
<img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/3826/10499101236_dc31e2d825_b.jpg" width="400px" height="500px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Jamaica Kincaid was born on May 25, 1949, in St. John's, Antigua, as Elaine Potter Richardson. She was a Caribbean American author whose essays, novellas, and novels depicted family dynamics and her home Antigua in vivid detail. (Britannica)
When she left Antigua at the age of 16, Kincaid relocated to New York City. She began her career as an au pair in Manhattan. She eventually got a photographic fellowship in New Hampshire, but she moved back to New York after only two years. In 1973, she adopted the pen name Jamaica Kincaid (partly to maintain her literary incognito), and the following year she began submitting essays to The New Yorker magazine, where she became a staff writer in 1976. Kincaid's essays for the magazine frequently focused on Caribbean culture. Her thoughts and stories were later published in various periodicals. (Britannica)
At the Bottom of the River, a collection of short tales and thoughts was published by Kincaid in 1983. It blended poetry and wrath, foreshadowing her later work. Annie John (1984) and Lucy (1990) were novels, but they were autobiographical, as were the majority of Kincaid's future writings, with a focus on mother-daughter relationships. A Small Place (1988), a three-part essay, extended her portrayal of Antigua and her outrage at its desecration. Kincaid's handling of familial ties, personhood and the taint of colonialism reached a fever pitch in The Autobiography of My Mother (1996) and My Brother (1997), an account of Kincaid's younger brother Devon Drew's death from AIDS. Her New Yorker "Talk of the Town" pieces were collected in Talk Stories (2001), and in 2005 she wrote Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya, an account of a plant-collecting journey she conducted in the Himalayan foothills. The jilted wife's acidic ruminations in the novel See Now Then (2013) record the late-life disintegration of a marriage. (Britannica)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''THE CHANGE OF WORKS OF FICTION FROM CARIBBEAN AUTHOR FROM THE 1940'S TO 2000'S''//]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[This project investigates the evolution and the movement of the works of fiction from the Caribbean starting from the 1940's to the 2000's.
The project was put together using three different tools I learnt while at Create Caribbean which are: Arc Gis, Twine and Zotero.
The researcher Mckel Ferrol will explore:
* The Evolution of Fiction from Caribbean Authors from the 1940's.
* Who were the people that influenced the works of fiction.
* Map the different works of fiction.
My inspreation for making this project can be found on my Project Proposal on my Jekyll page.
This project acts as a way for different reseacrhers and more importantly the youth to see how the fictional genre has changed and who was responsible for those changes over the years.]
[[What is the Fictional Genre?]](align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//''Kenneth Ramchand''//
<img src="https://bite-sizedbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/kenneth-ramchand-web.jpg" width="400px" height="400px"\>]
(align:"<==>")+(box:"X")[Kenneth Ramchand was born in 1939 in Trinidad and Tobago and is widely regarded as "probably the most renowned living reviewer of Caribbean fiction." He has written extensively about numerous West Indian authors, including V. S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, and Sam Selvon, and has edited several important cultural publications. His main work, The West Indian Novel and Its Background (1970) had a transformative impact on the University of the West Indies (UWI) curricula and the globalization of West Indian literature as an academic field. (“Kenneth Ramchand”)
Ramchand is an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of the West Indies' St. Augustine campus. He was associate provost at the University of Trinidad & Tobago until his departure in June 2009. (UTT). He served as an independent senator in Trinidad and Tobago's Senate for several years. Ramchand is also a Colgate University Emeritus Professor in Hamilton, New York.
Ramchand received the Trinidad and Tobago Chaconia Medal Gold in 1996 for his contributions to literature, education, and culture. In 2012, he received the NALIS Lifetime Literary Achievement Award from the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago. Ramchand was honored alongside Professor Gordon Rohlehr with the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters at the 2014 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, which recognizes the lifetime success of editors, publishers, reviewers, and broadcasters. (“Kenneth Ramchand”)]
[[Map of the works of fiction from 1940's to 2000's]]
[[Who were the people that influenced the Fictional Genre]]