Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Edward Kamau Brathwaite (born Lawson Edward Brathwaite) was a Barbadian poet, scholar, and academic born in 1930 in Bridgetown, Barbados, who studied at Cambridge and Sussex, worked in Ghana during its independence, co-founded the Caribbean Artists Movement, and taught at universities including NYU. Widely regarded as a major voice in Caribbean literature, he pioneered "nation language" and published influential works exploring the African diaspora, Creole society, and identity, including his seminal poetry trilogy The Arrivants. He won major awards like the Neustadt International Prize (1994) and Griffin Poetry Prize (2006) before his death in 2020.