Ekwueme Michael Thelwell (born Michael Miles Thelwell; 25 July 1939) is a Jamaican novelist, essayist, professor and civil rights activist. He was in 1970 founding chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

Early life

Born Michael Miles Thelwell in Ulster Spring, Jamaica, he attended Jamaica College and subsequently worked as public relations assistant for the Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation (1958–59). In 1959, he moved to the United States, where he was educated at

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

(earning a BA, 1964) and at the

(MFA, 1969).

Activism

Thelwell was active in the Black Freedom Movement, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), and in 1963 he was the Director of the Washington office of the

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...

( SNCC). In the 1980s his anti-apartheid activism resulted in legislation enacting a law against corporate tax write-offs for US-based corporations paying taxes to the

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

regime in South Africa.
In a 2005 radio interview with Amy Goodman of ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...

'', Thelwell said: "I didn't really become black until I set foot in this country (America)."

Writing

Thelwell is widely known for his 1980 novel ''The Harder They Come'', based on the film of the same title about the life and death of real-life Jamaican folk-hero Ivanhoe " Rhyging" Martin. The novel was praised by Nigerian novelist

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel ''Things Fall Apart'' ( ...

(who bestowed on Thelwell the Igbo name Ekwueme, meaning "the man who always does what he says he will") and by literary critic

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...

, who included it in his appendix to ''The Western Canon''. Thelwell has also published essays, criticism and commentary in ''

The Black Scholar ''The Black Scholar'' (''TBS'') is a journal founded in California, in 1969, by Robert Chrisman, Nathan Hare, and Allan Ross. It is the third oldest Black studies journal in the US, after the NAACP’s ''The Crisis'' (founded in 1910) and the ' ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'', '' The Massachusetts Review'', '' Temps Modernes'', '' Partisan Review'', '' Présence Africaine'' (Paris) and ''African Commentary''. A volume of his short stories and essays, ''Duties, Pleasures, and Conflicts: Essays in Struggle'', was released in 1987. He also helped prepare and edit the political memoirs of black activist Stokely Carmichael, ''Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael'' (2003). Thelwell is currently writing a critical study of Chinua Achebe, who dedicated his 1988 collection of essays '' Hopes and Impediments'' to Thelwell. Thelwell has also written two screenplays (''Washington Incident'', 1972; ''Girl Beneath the Lion'', 1978, with Paul Carter Harrison). He was a senior adviser on the television series '' Eyes on the Prize'' (part II; 1990).

Awards

Literary awards Thelwell has received include fellowships from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

, the Society for the Humanities, the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

and the Centennial Medal of the Institute of Jamaica.

References

External links

Michael Thelwell - Giants in the Earth
YouTube.
''Who Speaks for the Negro'' Vanderbilt documentary website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thelwell, Ekwueme Michael Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics African-American novelists American male novelists Jamaican emigrants to the United States Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1939 births Howard University alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Jamaican male novelists Jamaican activists 20th-century Jamaican novelists 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Massachusetts 20th-century African-American writers African-American male writers People educated at Jamaica College