Roger Mais

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Roger Mais (born August 11, 1905 in Kingston , † June 21, 1955 ibid) was a Jamaican writer, poet, photojournalist and painter. In 1978 he posthumously received the " Order of Jamaica " for his contribution to Jamaica's political development.

Corn was a prominent representative of the rising national movements, the "National Movement" of Jamaica in the 1930s. After writing mostly unpublished poems and short stories, he began from 1938 to depict the turmoil and hopelessness of the emancipating black population of Jamaica at the time of the Second World War . In 1944 Mais was imprisoned for six months in Spanish Town for his speech "Now we know", which was critical of Winston Churchill's politics . Only then did his trilogy of novels "The Hills Were Joyful Together" (1953), "Brother Man" (1954) and "Black Lightning" (1955) follow , which made him internationally known.

Roger Mais is widely regarded as the father of modern Caribbean literature. By aligning his literary work with the need for a national and cultural identity, he turned against the hegemonic literary tradition of Europe and placed his artistic work at the service of exploring his own people and their culture, with the aim of creating a unique, as authentic as possible Language to find.

Before starting his literary career, Mais worked as a photographer for the daily newspaper Jamaica Gleaner and began painting in the 1950s. His paintings can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the National Gallery of Jamaica.

literature

  • Evelyn Hawthorne: The writer in transition. Roger Mais and the decolonization of Caribbean culture. Lang, New York, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Paris 1989, ISBN 0-8204-0816-6 ( American university studies. Vol. 20, Series 19, General literature) (bibliography pp. 177–191).
  • Michael Manley: The writer Roger Mais , epilogue to the German edition of Roger Mais' "And all hills should jubilate", from the English by Jörg Hildebrandt, Unionsverlag, Zurich, 1983, ISBN 3-293-00069-X .
  • Winnifred B. Grandison: The Prose Style of Roger Mais In: Jamaica Journal 1974, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 48-54. [1]

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Corn, Roger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jamaican writer, poet and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston (Jamaica)
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1955
Place of death Kingston (Jamaica)