Biography Essay

Among the many letters (in the Lovelace Archives in Port of Spain) documenting Earl Lovelace's public-service record is a letter labeled "Memorandum Presented to the Right Honorable Dr. Eric Williams, Prime Minister, on Behalf of the Rio Claro Youth Organizations." Lovelace's letter elucidates both the method of his writing and the reason why he has become a powerful voice in Caribbean literature. He makes the following statement: "In our part of the nation, there has been domination by an element with a retrogressive, narrow, colonial outlook. . . . We believe that progress in a community is not measured only by what Government provides but chiefly by what the community is prepared to do for itself, to solve its own problems." This basic proposition translates itself as Lovelace's responsibility as a West Indian writer, or warrior, in combat with neocolonialism in any form. The argument for the enlightenment and...