Neville Dawes (16 June 1926 – 13 May 1984) was a novelist and poet born in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispan ...

n parentage. He was the father of poet and editor

Kwame Dawes Kwame Senu Neville Dawes (born 28 July 1962) is a Ghanaian poet, actor, editor, critic, musician, and former Louis Frye Scudder Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. He is now Professor of English at the University of N ...

Biography

Neville Augustus Dawes was born in

Warri The city of Warri is an oil hub within South-South Nigeria and houses an annex of the Delta State Government House. Warri City is one of the major hubs of the petroleum industry in Nigeria. Warri and her twin city, Uvwie are the commercia ...

, Nigeria, to Jamaican parents Augustus Dawes (a Baptist missionary and teacher) and his wife Laura, and was raised in rural Jamaica, where the family returned when he was three years old.Barrie Davies
"Dawes, Neville"
in Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly, ''Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English'', Routledge, 2004, p. 346. In 1938 he won a scholarship to

Jamaica College Jamaica College (abbreviated J.C. or JC) is a public, Christian, secondary school and sixth form for boys in Kingston, Jamaica. It was established in 1789 by Charles Drax, who was the grand-nephew of wealthy Barbadian sugar planter ...

and subsequently went to

Oriel College Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, w ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, where he read English."Dawes, Neville", in Michael Hughes, ''A Companion to West Indian Literature'', Collins, 1979, p. 39. After graduating he went to teach at

Calabar High School Calabar High School is an all-male secondary school in Kingston, Jamaica. It was established by the Jamaica Baptist Union in 1912 for the children of Baptist ministers. It was named after the Kalabari Kingdom later anglicized by the British ...

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the five most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

, Jamaica. Returning to West Africa in 1956, he took up a teaching post at Kumasi Institute of Technology in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in Ghana–Ivory Coast border, the west, Burkina ...

. He was subsequently a lecturer in English at the

University of Ghana The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the B ...

(1960–70). In 1962 he and his Ghanaian wife Sophia, an artist and social worker, had a son

Kwame Kwame is an Akan masculine given name among the Akan people (such as the Ashanti and Fante) in Ghana which is given to a boy born on Saturday. Traditionally in Ghana, a child would receive their Akan day name during their Outdooring, eight da ...

.Roy Seeger
"Dawes, Kwame"
in Tom Mack (ed.), ''The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers'', University of South Carolina Press, 30 January 2014. In 1971 Dawes returned with his family to Jamaica, where he became the executive director of the

Institute of Jamaica The Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), founded in 1879, is the country's most significant cultural, artistic and scientific organisation:BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

programme ''

Caribbean Voices ''Caribbean Voices'' was a radio programme broadcast by the BBC World Service from Bush House in London, England, between 1943 and 1958. It is considered "the programme in which West Indian literary talents first found their voice, in the early ...

''."Fugue and Other Writings" page
at Peepal Tree Press. His poetry was also published in Caribbean literary journals, including ''

Bim ''Bim'' is a 1974 Trinidad and Tobago film written by Raoul Pantin and directed by Hugh A. Robertson. It was described by Bruce Paddington as "one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago and... one of the classics of Ca ...

'', and he was one of the editors of '' Okyeame'', journal of the Ghana Society of Writers. A collection on his work entitled ''Fugue and Other Writings'' was published by

Peepal Tree Press Peepal Tree Press is a publisher based in Leeds, England which publishes Caribbean, Black British, and South Asian fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and academic books. It was founded after a paper shortage in Guyana halted production of new bo ...

in 2012, including poems, short stories, autobiographical writing and critical writing.

Bibliography

*''Poems — In Sepia'' (1958) * ''The Last Enchantment'' (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1960; Peepal Tree Press, 2009, ) *''Prolegomena to Caribbean Literature'' (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1977) *''Interim'' (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1978) *''Fugue and Other Writings'' (Peepal Tree Press, 2012, )

Criticism and further reading

Edward Brathwaite The Honourable Edward Kamau Brathwaite, CHB (; 11 May 1930 – 4 February 2020), was a Barbadian poet and academic, widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon.Staff (2011)"Kamau Brathwaite." New York University, D ...

, Review of ''The Last Enchantment'', in ''

'', vol. 9, no. 33 (July–December 1961), pp. 74–5. *Edward Brathwaite, "Roots", in ''Bim'', vol. 10, no. 37 (July/December 1963), pp. 10–21. *

George Lamming George William Lamming OCC (8 June 19274 June 2022) was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and poet. He first won critical acclaim for '' In the Castle of My Skin'', his 1953 debut novel. He also held academic posts, including as a distinguished ...

, "The Last Enchantment" (review), in ''Race'', vol. 2, no. 2 (May 1961), p. 92. *Basil McFarlane, "Jamaican Novel: A Review of The Last Enchantment", in ''

Jamaica Journal The ''Jamaica Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Institute of Jamaica. It publishes scholarly articles on the history, natural history, art, literature, music, and culture of Jamaica. Its predecessor was the ''Journal ...

'', vol. 9, nos 2 & 3 (1975), pp. 51–2. *

Gerald Moore Gerald Moore CBE (30 July 1899 – 13 March 1987) was an English classical pianist best known for his career as a collaborative pianist for many distinguished musicians. Among those with whom he was closely associated were Dietrich Fischer-Die ...

, ''The Chosen Tongue: English Writing in the Tropical World'' (1969), Longman.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:dawes, Neville 1926 births 1984 deaths 20th-century Jamaican novelists 20th-century Jamaican poets 20th-century male writers Jamaican male novelists Jamaican male poets Nigerian people of Jamaican descent People from Warri