Winner of the Griffin International Poetry Prize (2006) Kamau Brathwaite's newest work, Born to Slow Horses, is a series of poetic meditations on islands and exile, language and ritual, and the force of personal and historical passions and griefs. These poems are haunted, figuratively and literally, by spirits of the African diaspora and drenched in the colors, sounds, and rhythms of the islands. But they also encompass the world of the exile and return, and the events of 9/11 in New York City. Brathwaite is one of the foremost voices in postcolonial inquiry and expression, and his poetry is densely rooted and expansive. Using his unusual "sycorax" signature typography and spelling, Brathwaite brings a cultural specificity, with distinct accents, sonic gestures, and pronunciations, into his pages―making them new, exciting, and rich in nuances.
Author
Edward Kamau Brathwaite is widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. A professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, Brathwaite is the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry Born to Slow Horses. Brathwaite held a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex (1968) and was the co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). He received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships in 1983, and was a winner of the 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize for poetry, and the 1999 Charity Randall Citation for Performance and Written Poetry from the International Poetry Forum. Brathwaite is noted for his studies of Black cultural life both in Africa and throughout the African diasporas of the world in works such as Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica (1970); The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770 - 1820 (1971); Contradictory Omens (1974); Afternoon of the Status Crow (1982); and History of the Voice (1984), the publication of which established him as the authority of note on nation language.
