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

Nigeria Nigeria, 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 Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

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 ...

n parentage. He was the father of poet and editor Kwame Dawes.

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, Udu, Okpe and Uvwie are the commercial ...

, 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 (eds), ''Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English'', Routledge, 2004, p. 346. In 1938, he won a scholarship to Jamaica College 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, ...

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, 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 in

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six 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, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

. 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 is the oldest public university in the country. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the British colony of the Gold Coast ...

(1960–70). In 1962, he and his Ghanaian wife Sophia, an artist and social worker, had a son Kwame.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 in Kingston. He published two novels (''The Last Enchantment'' and ''Interim'') and a poetry collection, as well as short stories and essays, some of which were broadcast on the

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

radio programme '' Caribbean Voices''."Fugue and Other Writings" page
at Peepal Tree Press. Retrieved 23 November 2024. His poetry was also published in Caribbean literary journals, including ''

Bim Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...

'', 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. Poet Kwame Dawes has said: "Peepal Tree Press's position as the leading pu ...

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

Gerald Moore Gerald Moore (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-Diesk ...

, ''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 Jamaican male writers Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Jamaican male novelists Jamaican male poets Nigerian people of Jamaican descent People from Warri People educated at Jamaica College