Dabydeen, David

(1955- )

   Born in Berbice, Guyana, he has lived in England since 1969. After graduating with B.A. honors in English from Cambridge University, he gained a Ph.D. in 18th century literature and art at University College, London, in 1982, and was awarded a research fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford. He is director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies and professor at the Centre for British Comparative Cultural Studies at Warwick University. He is also Guyana's ambassador-at-large and a member of UNESCO's executive board. The Royal Society of Literature made him a fellow, the second West Indian writer (the other being the novelist V.S. Naipaul) and the only Guyanese writer to receive the title. He has received five literary awards, the last one being the 2004 Raja Rao Award for Literature (India). His long poem "Turner" was inspired by the painting "Slave Traders" by William Turner (17751851). Some of his other poetry publications: 1Slave Song, 1984 (republished 2005). Coolie Odyssey1, 1988. Turner: New and Selected Poems, 1994. Some of his poems: "Catching Crabs," "Coolie Mother," "Coolie Son," "Men and Women," "Miranda," "Two Cultures."

   Sources: Antholog y of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry. Stewart Brown, and Ian McDonald, ed. Heinemann, 1992. The New British Poetry, 1968-88. Gillian Allnutt, Fred D'Aguiar and Ken Edwards, ed. Grafton Books, 1989. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. Paula Burnett, ed. Penguin Books, 1986. Under Another Sky: An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry Prize Winners. Alastair Niven, ed. Carcanet, 1987. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).