September 2003

MAUREEN  WARNER-LEWIS

DATE OF BIRTH: 1940s
PLACE OF BIRTH: ..., Tobago
EDUCATION:
  • St. Joseph's Convent, Port-of-Spain
  • University of the West Indies, Jamaica (BA in Literature, 1965)
  • York University, England (MPhil)
  • CAREER:                                     Born in Tobago, Warner-Lewis grew up in Trinidad where she received her early education. In 1962, she won a Trinidad & Tobago scholarship to study English Literature at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. She attended graduate school in England where she concentrated in linguistics and ended up learning Yoruba. She then returned to Trinidad to teach in the secondary school system for a year before moving on to Nigeria where she taught English Language and English Literature. In 1970, she returned to Jamaica to lecture at the University of the West Indies, and dedicated her life to studying the connections between Central Africa and the Caribbean that were forged through slavery. Warner-Lewis' publications include:
    • Trinidad Yoruba, From Mother Tongue to Memory (1982)
    • Guinea's Other Suns: The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture (1991)
    • Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Space, Transforming Culture (2003)
    • Garvey: Africa, Europe, the Americas
    Compiled by Ronald C. Emrit