Book cover for Lost and Found, An A-Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean

Lost and Found

An A-Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean

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Description

“This wonderfully rich book rewrites the 20th-century literary history of the West Indies.” — Brigid Brereton, Trinidad & Tobago Express

“This is a fascinating, groundbreaking and essential rewriting of literary history to include outstanding writers who fell from sight but whose works deserve to be better known.” — Bernardine Evaristo

“This wonderful anthology packs a timely punch.” — Michèle Roberts, The Tablet

“So she searched and re-searched and found gems.” — Gordon Robinson, Jamaica Gleaner

Lost and Found makes a major contribution to providing a fuller picture of the Caribbean’s rich literary history. It both restores our knowledge of writers whose lives and work have slipped out of view while heralding others whose work has never been properly recognised. Offering a fascinating insight into the lives and writings of these ‘lost’ writers, this A-Z also provides future researchers with a comprehensive bibliography of their forgotten works.

An inspiring reclaiming of writers, especially women, from Antigua, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad: those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time; those disregarded by the establishment; those whose personal or professional lives stole their writing lives; those who suffered discrimination; those who wrote about the “wrong” things. All are celebrated in this meticulously researched and compiled book.

Book Details

Publisher: Papillote Press
Cost: £15.99
Publish Date: May 2025
Format: Paperback
Ebook: Yes
Language: English
Pages 300
ISBN: 9781739130312
Category: Biography, Historical
 

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About the Author

Alison Donnell is head of Humanities and Professor of Modern Literatures in English at the University of Bristol. She has published widely in the field of Caribbean literature, with significant contributions to literary history and culture, research into women authors, and Caribbean literary archives.

Reviews

Seldom does academic work transform a landscape. Alison Donnell has resuscitated and reformed the mostly male-dominated Caribbean canon to show that women were very much part of the Golden Age of Caribbean literature. It needs to be widely read.”

– Monique Roffey, Winner of Costa Book of the year 2020

Lost and Found challenges our most deeply held literary myth: that West Indian literature spontaneously arose mid-century when a few gifted men, justly celebrated, burst onto the metropolitan literary scene. It offers acute insight into the politics of how literary recognition might be gained – or lost.”

– Olive Senior, Author and Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2021-2024

An astonishment and a revelation: of all that has been written and all that was, until now, in danger of being irrevocably lost. Extremely well written, informative and insightful, Lost and Found is literary and biographical excavation at its best.”

– Jacqueline Bishop, Award-Winning Writer and Visual Artist

Videos

Alison Donnell reads from Lost and Found: An A-Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean

Part one

Alison Donnell reads from Lost and Found: An A-Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean

Part two: Alison Donnell reads from E is for Gloria Escoffery (p.58)

Caribbean Seminar Series – Lost and Found: An A-Z of Neglected Writers of the Anglophone Caribbean

“The A-Z of Neglected Writers from the English-speaking Caribbean makes a major contribution to restoring a fuller picture of this region’s extraordinary literary history. It brings back to attention writers who were prominent in their day and subsequently slipped out of view – such as Phyllis Shand Allfrey, W. G. Ogilvie and Claude Thompson, while also advocating for writers whose work was never properly recognised or circulated – such as Edwina Melville and Monica Skeete. Offering a fascinating insight into the much wider range of twentieth-century writers than is commonly acknowledged, this book also provides future researchers with a comprehensive bibliography of their forgotten works.”

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