Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke was born in 1934 in Barbados.

On leaving full-time education, he taught for three years at a rural secondary school, before moving to Canada, studying economics and political science at the University of Toronto.  He abandoned his studies to work in journalism and broadcasting, and began writing fiction. In 1962 he became a full-time writer and produced the manuscripts for a book of short stories and two novels in the next two years.  In the mid 1960s he worked as a freelance broadcaster for the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, recording interviews and documentaries on black issues in North America and Britain, and was active in the civil rights movement in Toronto in the 1960s and in the US in the 1970s, where he took several visiting lectureships in Creative Writing and African American literature at major American Universities. 

From 1974-75 he was cultural attaché to the Barbadian Embassy in Washington, after which he was asked to return to Barbados as General Manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation and adviser to the Prime Minister.  He left after one year, returning to Canada, and later wrote Prime Minister, a novel inspired by this experience - an expose about corruption in a developing country. Returning to Canada, he wrote a weekly column for a Barbadian newspaper from 1979-1982, and served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada from 1988-1993. 

Being a Canadian writer, born and raised in Barbados, allows Clarke to write from a unique perspective.  The struggles of Caribbean immigrants in Toronto against racism and economic exploitation is a common theme in his work. His first published work was a novel entitled The Survivors of the Crossing (1964).  Many other novels followed, including a trilogy comprising The Meeting Point (1967), Storm of Fortune (1973), and The Bigger Light (1975).  The Origin of Waves (1997), a novel of memory and reunion, led to Clarke being named as the inaugural recipient of the Rogers Communications Trust Fiction Prize in 1998. 

Clarke is also the author of several collections of short stories.  His second collection When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks (1971) was a great critical success, and was followed by several other volumes, including When Women Rule (1985) and There Are No Elders (1993). 

Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack (1980) is a memoir of Clarke's childhood in Barbados, featuring his primary education at St Mathias Boys School, and explores colonial and postcolonial conditions in the British Empire. A second book of memoirs, A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon (1994) explores his relationship with this Trinidadian writer and in Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit: Rituals of Slave Food - A Barbadian Memoir (1999), he combines recipes with further memories of his years in Barbados.

Austin Clarke continues to live in Toronto, and his most recent novel, More (2008), his most political yet, is a powerful indictment of the iniquities of racial discrimination and the crime of poverty. It won the City of Toronto Book Award in 2008.