Edward Kamau Brathwaite (born May 11, 1930) is one of the major voices in t… Read Full Bio ↴Edward Kamau Brathwaite (born May 11, 1930) is one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. Brathwaite is the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry, Born to Slow Horses.

A holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex and co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), Brathwaite's name is seminal for a literary critic, scholar, or student concerned with Caribbean Literature, History and Culture. He has received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, to cite only two of many other notable fellowships. Winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the Charity Randall Prize for Performance and Written Poetry, Brathwaite has painstakingly established himself as a tour-de-force in not only the literary arts arena but also in the arena of historical and cultural studies.

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; The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820; Contradictory Omens; Afternoon of the Status Crow; and History of the Voice.