Culture & History
Althea Prince
Althea Prince is of Antiguan origin. She has taught at York University and the University of Toronto.
List of Published Works
- Loving This Man. Toronto: Insomniac, 2001.
- Ladies of the Night and other stories. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1993.
- How the Starfish Got to the Sea. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1992.
- How the Eastpond Got its Flowers. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1991.
Excerpt
From: Loving This Man.
Afua Cooper
Afua Cooper is of Jamaican origin. Her poetry encompasses African rhythms and musicality of the Black diaspora. Tackling issues of history and place, Cooper’s works also have a strong undercurrent of feminist sensibility, which translates well into dub poetry.
Cooper lives in Toronto with her family, where she teaches sociology at Ryerson University. She is interested in gender studies within the field of African North American History as well as the importance of education especially for minority students.
Afua Cooper's Thoughts
Honor Ford Smith
Honor Ford Smith was born in Montreal to Jamaican immigrant parents. She then went to university in Jamaica. In 1977 she founded Sistren, a very successful Jamaican feminist theatre company. She performed through the 1980s and also began publishing. She has held fellowships with several universities and colleges throughout the world.
Ford-Smith writes poetry as well as non-fiction on Caribbean culture, women’s history and theatre.
She currently lives in Toronto and teaches part-time at York University.
List of Published Works
History of Trinidad Carnival
More Than Just A Party
"Without question, carnival had become a symbol of freedom for the broad mass of the population and not merely a season for frivolous enjoyment. It had a ritualistic significance, rooted in the experience of slavery and in the celebration of freedom from slavery.....Adopted by the Trinidad people it become a deeply meaningful anniversary of deliverance from the most hateful form of human bondage
-Professor Errol Hill in The Trinidad Carnival, 1972.
What is Calypso Music? An Introduction
Calypso has been described as the popular folksong which emerged from the African people during plantation slavery on the island of Trinidad in the eastern Caribbean. Developing from an oral tradition, most of the early calypsos, and even those of today have never been published in written form. Due to the oral nature of this tradition, this has made it difficult for scholars to do research in this area. William Aho, in his 1984 work states:
Tumelo E. Phali
Tumelo E. Phali is editor of Around The Fire newsletter and co-editor of CaribbeanTales here in Toronto, Canada. At high school he was editor of the schools’ weekly newsletter. After his engineering studies at Ellis Park College in South Africa, he entered the television industry where he etched a name for himself as a scriptwriter. After his first short-film, “Heads Or Tails”, he went on to write for award-winning television series like Justice For All, Soul City, Thetha Msawawa (Best African Children’s Education Drama series) and more.
Anthony Hall
Anthony Hall is a playwright who lives in Tobago. He is also a director of Banyan Productions in Trinidad. Right now he is Artist in Residence at Trinity College, Hartford, CT as well as an Academic Director for the Intensive Studies Program at the University of the West Indies. His play "Jean And Dinah, Who Have Been Locked Away In A World Famous Calypso For Twenty-Five Years, Speak Their Minds Publicly", documenting the 1950's period of pre-independence in the Caribbean, is recognized as one of the finest theatrical pieces to emerge from the Caribbean in recent years.
Susan Panchan
Susan Panchan is the Manager of Leda Serene Films. She has worked as an Administrator, Accountant and Fund-raiser for a range of organizations.
Shana L. Calixte
Shana L. Calixte, 28, is a PhD Candidate in the School of Women’s Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. She has an MA in Women’s Studies from York University as well, and a Bachelor of Journalism and Women’s Studies from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Her current academic work is focussed on Girl Guide associations in the Caribbean and HIV/AIDS education. Her past work centred on the use of oral histories to document the stories of migration, home and displacement for second generation Caribbean women.
Resh Budhu
Resh Budhu is currently a graduate student at the University of Toronto in Canada. She has worked extensively in theatre as well as in issues dealing with anti-racism and gender justice. Resh is glad to be a part of Caribbean Tales.
Regan Macaulay
To date, Regan has produced over twenty plays in ten different productions and seven short films/videos over the past ten years. She has directed seven of these plays (A Short History of Night, Judgment, The Test, Destiny of Chance, Where are the Birds, Bitter, The Paradise Lust Romance Series) and all seven of the short films (either portions of or in their entirety). As of June 1998, Regan was a graduate of the Radio and Television Arts program at Ryerson and during her time spent there, she also worked as an Animal Care Specialist and Wrangler at Hammytime III Productions Inc.
Ramabai Espinet
Ramabai Espinet was born and educated in Trinidad, and has lived in Canada for over 30 years (Quebec, Alberta, BC and Ontario). For the last fifteen years, her work in academia and activism (anti-racist and women's organizing) has been solidly based in Ontario and the Caribbean. During the eighties, she worked extensively with academic and popular women's organizations in the Caribbean through CAFRA, WAND and Working Women. She was coordinator of the Caribbean Women's History Project, an initiative which was launched in order to reclaim, disseminate and showcase women's real, lived history.