Happy 88th Birthday to the renowned Trinbagonian novelist, playwright and journalist, Earl Lovelace!

He is known for his highly-awarded literary career that has spanned five decades, producing works such as: “The Schoolmaster” (1968), “The Dragon Can’t Dance” (1979), and “Salt” (1996) which was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1997.
Born in Toco on July 13th 1935, Lovelace was sent to live with his grandparents in Tobago until age 11, when he rejoined his family in Trinidad in 1946. As a young man, he worked as a proofreader at the Trinidad Publishing Company, followed by jobs with the Department of Forestry and the Ministry of Agriculture as a forest ranger. These positions gave him an inside look at what life was like in the more rural areas of Trinidad, which he then utilised in his writing.
Lovelace’s books are distinct because as a native writer he covered topics indigenous to Trinidad and Tobago, such as Carnival, colonialism, and the banning of Spiritual/Shouter Baptists. His 1982 book, “The Wine of Astonishment” was written entirely in Trinidadian dialect.
His first novel, “While Gods Are Falling”, was published in the United Kingdom in 1965. Lovelace moved to the United States the following year to study at Howard University, and in 1979 he published his third novel, the acclaimed “The Dragon Can’t Dance”. He also wrote its stage adaptation, and his work as a playwright continued during the 1970s, publishing, “My Name is Village” (1976) and “Jestina’s Calypso” (1978).
Lovelace is also an accomplished newspaper columnist and university lecturer, having lectured in Literature at numerous universities abroad and at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
For his work, Lovelace was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980, the Chaconia Medal (Gold) in 1988, and an honourary doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 2002.
This photo is courtesy of the Trinidad Express Newspaper, Nov 12th, 2018. This newspaper is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Newspaper Collection.
References: Ali, Shereen. “Bocas Lit Fest Pays Tribute to Earl Lovelace.” The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, 2 July 2015.
Bastien, Elliot, and Sandra Bernard-Bastien. World Class Trinidad & Tobago: An Area of Abundance: Profiles of Performance. Sekani Publications, 2006.
Lovelace, Earl. The Dragon Can't Dance. Faber and Faber, 1998. (Source: National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, July 13, 2023)