Further to my earlier email...
Now looking at
Chapter 6
Wireless Writing, the Second World War and the West Indian Literary Imagination
James Procter
from
Plain, Gill. 2018. British Literature in Transition, 1940–1960: Postwar. Edited by Gill Plain. British Literature in Transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:DOI: 10.1017/9781316340530.
James Procter looks beyond the centrality of Henry Swanzy, and at other BBC Caribbean output in that period.
'On Saturday 24 April 1948, two months before the Windrush famously ‘arrived’ at Tilbury, the following news item was broadcast from London to the Caribbean:
The Colonial Office have announced that the last big draft of airmen for repatriation will sail from Tilbury on May 8th on the Empire Windrush. This draft which is about five hundred strong will consist of ordinary airmen who are anxious to be repatriated … more than half will be from Jamaica, fifty from British Guiana, twenty from Trinidad, fifteen from Barbados, three from British Honduras and two from Antigua. The Officers-in-Charge will be Flight Lieutenant Johnny Smythe, a West African who still carries around several bits of shrapnel in his lungs and side from his war service and Flight Lieutenant J. J. Blair of Jamaica who won the D.F.C.48...'
James Procter concludes
'What is today understood as a story of postwar influx was once a story of exodus that points to the
West Indian wartime presence and active participation of the wider
Commonwealth. In other words, this slightly earlier Windrush narrative
at the BBC complicates the inside/outside, before/after binaries that fall
either side of 1945, not just pushing back, but reframing ‘postwar’ as
a diasporic as well as domestic narrative.'
Influx and presence are italicised in the original text.
If I can allow myself one quick comment on BBC Caribbean writing vs BBC Irish writing - the Caribbean writers seem to be much more upfront with irony...
Patrick O'Sullivan
Visiting Scholar, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University
http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/page/faculty
Email at NYU [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: The History of the BBC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Patrick O'Sullivan
Sent: 12 February 2019 15:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BBC-HISTORY] The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943-1958, Glyne Griffith
I know that many members of this group are interested in the BBC and the
Caribbean...
So, thought it worth mentioning Glyne Griffith 's book...
The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943-1958
Authors: Griffith, Glyne, 2016
Visible here...
https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319321172
Helpful review by Rhonda Cobham-Sander is visible here...
The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Caribbean Literature, 1943-1958
Rhonda Cobham-Sander
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00086495.2017.1352294
Helpful review by Gemma Robinson here
https://brill.com/view/journals/nwig/92/3-4/article-p365_40.xml
Henry Swanzy obituary here...
Pioneering BBC producer whose literary programmes launched a generation of
Caribbean writers
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/20/guardianobituaries
I am more interested in the BBC and Irish/Irish Diaspora identities, of
course - but need all the help I can get, and Glyne Griffith offers a point
of comparison, and indeed a critique.
Indeed it might be suggested that one identity possibly available to Henry
Swanzy, given his origins, was some form of Irish or diasporic. 'Irishness'
as a version of pastoral is always available, of course. And, I guess, so
is Caribbean-ness.
Patrick O'Sullivan
Visiting Scholar, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University
http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/page/faculty
Email at NYU [log in to unmask]
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the BBC-HISTORY list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=BBC-HISTORY&A=1
|