Marina Salandy-Brown

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

, Hon.

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

, is a

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

ian journalist, broadcaster and cultural activist. She was formerly an editor and Senior Manager in Radio and News and Current Affairs programmes with the

British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved in ...

(BBC) in London,Court of Governors, University of Westminster.
/ref> one of the BBC's few top executives from an ethnic minority background. She is the founder and inaugural director of the

NGC Bocas Lit Fest The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest lit ...

, held annually in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

since 2011, "the biggest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean", and of the

OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, inaugurated in 2011 by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, is an annual literary award for books by Caribbean writers published in the previous year.Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize. In 2020, Salandy-Brown received the

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer best known for having planned and led the 1519–22 Spanish expedition to the East Indies. During this expedition, he also discovered the Strait of Magellan, allowing his fl ...

Award from Chile, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom's

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

. In 2022, she received the Hummingbird Silver Medal at the National Awards ceremony in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Biography

She was born Marina Salandy in

Diego Martin Diego Martin () is a town and is the urban commercial center and capital of the Diego Martin region in Trinidad and Tobago. Its location in the region is just on the south eastern border, west of the capital city of Port of Spain and east of the ...

, Trinidad, and has said: " l Salandys apparently started there, but I come from everywhere in Trinidad. Although I was a town girl, my father ran government experimental (agricultural) stations and we were lucky enough to also live all over rural Trinidad. I lived in Maracas, St Joseph, when you had to go down into the river five times before getting to our house at the end of the road. When we lived in Matelot, the road wasn't properly paved."B. C. Pires
"A Trini literary festival"
''

Trinidad and Tobago Guardian The ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'' (together with the ''Sunday Guardian'') is the oldest daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper is considered the newspaper of record for Trinidad and Tobago. The slogan of the paper is ''The Guardia ...

'', 1 May 2011. She attended the government secondary school in Diego Martin."A Trini Lit Fest"
, BCRaw.com.

Career in Britain

At the age of 17, Salandy-Brown left Trinidad and migrated to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

to attend university. In

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, she began her working life in publishing as an editor with the

Melrose Press The International Biographical Centre was a publisher owned by Melrose Press Ltd that specializes in producing biographical publications, such as the ''Dictionary of International Biography'', ''Great Men and Women of Science'' and other vanity a ...

, after which she was for more than 20 years an editor and senior manager in BBC Radio and News and Current Affairs programmes. Among the BBC radio programmes she produced was

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's '' Start the Week'', presented by

Melvyn Bragg Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg (born 6 October 1939) is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is the editor and presenter of ''The South Bank Show'' (1978–2010, 2012–2023), and the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 documentary series ...

. Bragg recalled the beginning of their successful long-term collaboration: "I met this producer Marina Salandy-Brown and neither she nor I wanted to go on doing the same ''Start the Week''. I remember we had lunch together – and I said, 'Well, if I'm going to go on I want to do this sort of stuff,' And she said, 'So do I' – or she said it first and I agreed…. And then we just conscientiously, steadily put that into operation and changed the programme." In the new styling of the programme, "The producer, Marina Salandy-Brown, and I introduced scientists, historians and philosophers on to that Monday morning slot, and changed the nature of the programme. A change which I am glad that my successor

Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English former broadcaster, journalist and author, born in Yorkshire. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate ...

and his successor

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and presenter. Beginning his career as a political commentator at ''The Scotsman,'' he subsequently edited ''The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to ...

have kept." Other programmes Salandy-Brown produced for BBC Radio 4 included the series ''Work Talk'' (1991–92), presented by

Ferdinand Dennis Ferdinand Dennis (born 18 March 1956)"Ferdinand Dennis"
,

Book at Bedtime ''Book at Bedtime'' (''A Book at Bedtime'' until 9 July 1993) is a long-running radio programme that is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday evening between 22:45 and 23:00. The programme presents readings of fiction, including modern classic ...

'', a 1993 edition featuring

Lawrence Scott Lawrence Scott FRSL (born in Trinidad, 1943) is a novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad and Tobago, who divides his time between London and Port of Spain. He has also worked as a teacher of English and Drama at schools in London and in ...

's novel ''Witchbroom'', abridged by

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's then youngest publisher as well as the first black female book p ...

. In the early 1980s, Salandy-Brown was involved with the Black Media Workers' Association (BMWA), a pressure group for better training and employment opportunities for black workers in the mainstream press and broadcasting, and in 1982 she conducted research that was the basis for the BMWA report ''Black Workers in the Media''. As Home Editor of

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

, Salandy-Brown was concerned with implementing a diversity policy, arguing in 2002 that "there is no point having diverse people if you don’t allow them to be diverse". She explained the context:

"When I joined the BBC in 1984 there were no people of colour working in radio production in the four national domestic services, except one producer from India.... On BBC TV there was one Caribbean woman news presenter,
Moira Stuart Moira Clare Ruby Stuart (born 2 September 1949) is an English TV presenter and broadcaster. She was the first female newsreader of Caribbean heritage to appear on British national television, having worked on BBC News since 1981.

Salandy-Brown was a governor of the

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...

, a member of the

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

Literature panel, and a former trustee of the Koestler Awards to support and fund Arts in prisons in the UK. She is a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

(FRSA).

Return to Trinidad

Returning to Trinidad in 2004 to be with her mother, Salandy-Brown has since 2005 contributed a weekly commentary column to the ''

Trinidad and Tobago Newsday ''Trinidad and Tobago Newsday'' is a daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. ''Newsday'' is the newest of the three daily papers after the ''Trinidad and Tobago Guardian'' and the '' Trinidad and Tobago Express'' respectively. The newspaper was f ...

''. She is a consultant to the Trinidad & Tobago Film Company and was formerly Executive Director of the

Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival The Trinidad and Tobago film festival (stylised as 'trinidad+tobago film festival' or 'ttff') is a film festival in the Anglophone Caribbean. It takes place annually in Trinidad and Tobago in the latter half of September, and runs for approximately ...

. She also works across the Caribbean as a media consultant.

Bocas Lit Fest

Salandy-Brown has spoken of her realisation after returning to Trinidad that locally " ere was no place for people who read to get together, in a forum to talk about books and there were so many Caribbean writers abroad who had not been to other islands — something was missing." As she stated in 2011: "In Britain there are a hundred and how many literary festivals. Little

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

, which is so poor and so tiny, has a literary festival.

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

had one for 10 years, the Calabash. I think

Antigua Antigua ( ; ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the local population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua ...

has one. Why didn't we have one, when we've produced so many great writers?

Sam Selvon Samuel Dickson Selvon (20 May 1923 – 16 April 1994)"Samuel Selvon"
''Encyclop ...

and these people really made an impact on the world stage.

Earl Lovelace Earl Wilbert Lovelace (born 13 July 1935) is a Trinidad and Tobago novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer. He is particularly recognized for his descriptive, dramatic fiction on Trinidadian culture: "Using Trinidadian dialect ...

is treasured, but not treasured enough, because we don't have prizes. There's been no accolade of Earl's writing since the 1970s. It's important to reward creative effort! We created a literary festival but we also created an international prize for Caribbean writing." So, working with a group of like-minded people – including

Nicholas Laughlin Nicholas Laughlin (born 6 May 1975)"In brief"
Nicholas Laughlin's website. is a writer and editor from

Funso Aiyejina Funso Aiyejina (1 January 1949 – 1 July 2024) was a Nigerian poet, short story writer, playwright and academic. He was Dean of Humanities and Education (until his retirement in 2014) and Professor Emeritus at the University of the West Indies. ...

Marjorie Thorpe Marjorie Ruth Thorpe is a Trinidadian academic, lecturer, former diplomat and the first woman to have chaired the Public Service Commission (PSC) in Trinidad and Tobago.Jeremy Taylor Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) was a cleric in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression, and he is fr ...

– Salandy-Brown launched the

Bocas Lit Fest The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest lit ...

in April 2011, together with the

Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, inaugurated in 2011 by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, is an annual literary award for books by Caribbean writers published in the previous year.COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In January 2022, Salandy-Brown announced that she was "passing on the baton" to Nicholas Laughlin to serve in the roles of festival and programme director, while she remains as president of Bocas.

Writing

As well her weekly column in ''Newsday'', Salandy-Brown has written reviews, articles and essays for other publications both in the Caribbean region and internationally, including ''

Caribbean Beat ''Caribbean Beat'', founded in 1992, is a bimonthly magazine, published in Port of Spain, Trinidad, covering the arts, culture and society of the Caribbean, with a focus on the region's English-speaking territories. It is distributed in-flight by ...

'', ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', and elsewhere. She was a contributor to the book ''Caribbean Dispatches: Beyond the Tourist Dream'' (2006), compiled and edited by Jane Bryce, and, more recently, to the 2019 anthology ''

New Daughters of Africa ''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora ...

'', edited by

Awards and recognition

In 1988, Salandy-Brown won the Sony Silver Award for Most Creative Use of Radio, and 1994 she was named Radio Journalist of the Year.Essiba Small
"Marina Salandy-Brown - Bringing readers & writers together"
''Trinidad Express Newspapers'', 15 March 2013. . She also won Programme of the Year, UK Television and Radio Industries Club, in 1990, and a Sony Gold Award, Best News Programme in 2000 for

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

. In 1992, she won the New York Festivals Award, Silver."Start Me Up – Honorary Graduand Marina Salandy-Brown"
''UWI Today'', August 2013. In 2005, she was awarded an honorary doctorate (

DLitt Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or '), also termed Doctor of Literature in some countries, is a terminal degree in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In the United States, at universities such as Drew University, the degree ...

) by the University of Westminster. In 2012, she was recognised by for her achievements in the Arts in the UK during the last 50 years with an award at the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Jubilee celebrations. In 2013, she was among six persons to be conferred with honorary doctorates from the University of the West Indies at St Augustine,"UWI St Augustine Campus names six Honorary Graduands"
UWI Campus News, 11 June 2013. when in October the Chancellor George A. O. Alleyne presented her with the Doctor of Letters (DLitt), Honoris Causa of UWI. In October 2020, an award was conferred on Salandy-Brown marking the 500th anniversary of

's first circumnavigation of the world, in recognition of her work founding the Bocas Lit Fest, promoting art and literature throughout the Caribbean, and exploring other cultures. The inaugural Strait of Magellan Award was presented to her at the Bocas Lit Fest headquarters, Alcazar Street, Port of Spain, on 30 November by Ambassador of Chile Juan Aníbal Barría, who called Salandy-Brown "an explorer like Magellan, who, thanks to her discipline, work and innovation, has managed to build an educational space that crosses the frontiers of knowledge and contributes to the dissemination of the rich Caribbean culture." Salandy-Brown was elected an Honorary Fellow of the

(RSL) in 2020, the 200th anniversary of the RSL's founding.Janine Mendes-Franco,
"'Godmother' of Caribbean literature, Marina Salandy-Brown, made honorary fellow of Royal Society of Literature"
''Global Voices'', 5 December 2020. Alongside the Bocas Lit Fest that she founded, Salandy-Brown was celebrated by the

International Women's Forum The International Women's Forum (IWF), founded in 1974 as the Women's Forum of New York, is an invitation-only women's organization with some 7,800 members. Its mission is "to support the women leaders of today and tomorrow". The IWF hosts two co ...

(IWF) in the "Ideas Remaking the World" segment of IWF's World Leadership Conference in November 2021. In September 2022, she received the Trinidad national award of the

Hummingbird Medal The Hummingbird Medal (abbreviated HBM or H.B.M.) is a state decoration of Trinidad and Tobago, instituted in 1969. The medal is awarded for loyal and devoted service beneficial to the state in any field, or acts of conspicuous gallantry or other o ...

(Silver).

References

External links

* Essiba Small
"Marina Salandy-Brown - Bringing readers & writers together"
''Trinidad Express Newspapers'', 15 March 2013. * Janine Mendes-Franco
"‘Not Just About Writers': Talking with NGC Bocas Lit Fest Founder"
Global Voices, 13 May 2013. * Shereen Ali
"Marina Salandy-Brown...A determined lobbyist"
''Sunday Guardian'', 10 November 2013.
"Start Me Up – Honorary Graduand Marina Salandy-Brown"
''UWI Today''.
"A Q&A with Marina Salandy-Brown, Chair of the 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize"
''

Wasafiri ''Wasafiri'' is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word "safari ...

'', 28 May 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Salandy-Brown, Marina Living people BBC radio producers British radio producers Festival directors Recipients of the Hummingbird Medal Trinidad and Tobago broadcasters Trinidad and Tobago columnists Trinidad and Tobago journalists Trinidad and Tobago women columnists Trinidad and Tobago women journalists Trinidad and Tobago women writers Women radio producers Year of birth missing (living people)