Erna Brodber
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Erna Brodber (born 20 April 1940) is a Jamaican writer, sociologist and social activist.[1] She is the sister of writer Velma Pollard.
Biography
Born in the farming village of Woodside, Saint Mary Parish, Jamaica, she gained a B.A. from the University College of the West Indies, followed by an MSc and PhD, and has received a predoctoral fellowship in psychiatric anthropology. She subsequently worked as a civil servant, teacher, sociology lecturer, and researcher at the Institute for Social and Economic Research in the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica.[1] During Brodber's time working at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies, she collected several oral histories of elderly people's lives in rural Jamaica, which inspired her novel, Louisiana. After working at the university, she left to work full-time in her home community of Woodside.[2]
She is the author of five novels: Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994), The Rainmaker's Mistake[3] (2007), and Nothing's Mat (2014). She also writes non-fiction. Brodber works as a freelance writer, researcher, and lecturer in Jamaica. She was Writer-in-Residence at the University of the West Indies, Mona for the 2013-2014 academic year.[4]
Work
Brodber—trained as a sociologist with a Ph.D. and several publications on Jamaican society—emphasizes non-western forms of understanding in her fiction, deconstructing the historical methodologies of colonialist knowledge. She works to challenge western ways of ordering the world, and to resurrect myth and tradition as a form of historical rehabilitation from the psychic damage of slavery and colonialism. She weaves fantastical, non-realist elements with traditional modes of story-telling—emphasizing both as crucial to the psychic make-up of her characters and the world around them. As seen in her novel Louisiana, Brodber also plays with western notions of time. Time is ambiguous among the characters and not exactly viewed in a straight line. The shared experiences of those in the past mingle with those in the present.[5]
Awards and honours
Brodber won the Caribbean and Canadian regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989 for Myal.[4] In 1999, she was awarded the Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature from the Institute of Jamaica,[6] and she was awarded the Order of Distinction (Commander Class) from the government of Jamaica in 2004. She received a Prince Claus Award in 2006[7] and a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in 2017.[8]
Bibliography
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Novels[9]
- Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (London: New Beacon Books, 1980). Extracted in Margaret Busby (ed.), Daughters of Africa (1992), pp. 503ff.[10]
- Myal: A Novel (New Beacon Books, 1988), Template:ISBN
- Louisiana (New Beacon Books, 1994)
- The Rainmaker's Mistake (New Beacon Books, 2007), Template:ISBN
- Nothing's Mat (University of West Indies Press, 2014), Template:ISBN[11]
Non-fiction
- The People of my Jamaican Village, 1817 - 1948 (Blackspace, 1999), Template:ISBN
- Woodside, Pear Tree Grove P.O. (University of the West Indies Press, 2004), Template:ISBN
- The Second Generation of Freemen in Jamaica, 1907–1944 (University Press of Florida, 2004), Template:ISBN
- The Continent of Black Consciousness: On the History of the African Diaspora from Slavery to the Present Day (New Beacon Books, 2003), Template:ISBN
- Moments of Cooperation and Incorporation: African American and African Jamaican Connections, 1782-1996 (The University of West Indies Press, 2019), Template:ISBN
Play
- Ratoon: a New Jamaica (2015). Performed by the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, School of Drama, directed by Carolyn Allen.[12][13]
References
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- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lichtenstein, David P. "A Brief Biography of Erna Brodber". Literature of the Caribbean. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ^ Samuel, Petal (12 October 2016), "Erna Brodber and Pan-Africanism in Post-Independence Jamaica", Black Perspectives, AAIHS.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Paul, Annie (February 2008). "Black rain". Caribbean Review of Books. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Erna Brodber is Writer-in-Residence at UWI, Mona | Marketing and Communications Office, The University of West Indies at Mona". www.mona.uwi.edu. Retrieved 11 July 2025.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Erna Brodber | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
- ^ "Erna Brodber", The Spaces between Words - Conversations with Writers.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Erna Brodber". Bocas Lit Fest. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Cummings, Mike (1 March 2017). "Yale awards eight writers $165,000 Windham-Campbell Prizes". YaleNews. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lichtenstein, David P. "Erna Brodber: Works". Literature of the Caribbean. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ^ "Daughters of Africa : an international anthology of words and writings by women of African descent from the ancient Egyptian to the present". Internet Archive.
- ^ Nothing’s Mat page Script error: No such module "webarchive". at University of the West Indies Press.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Ratoon interrogates J'can society". jamaica-gleaner.com. 20 October 2015. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Reckord, Michael (23 October 2015). "Rex's sense of community, Ratoon's approach". jamaica-gleaner.com. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
External links
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- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Brodber, Erna (May–July 1986). "The Pioneering Miss Bailey". Jamaica Journal. Digital Library of the Caribbean. p. 9. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Brodber, Erna (November 1983). "Oral Sources and the Creation of a Social History in the Caribbean". Jamaica Journal. Digital Library of the Caribbean. p. 2. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Cooke, Michael G. (August–October 1989). "Myal". Jamaica Journal. Digital Library of the Caribbean. p. 56. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.O'Callaghan, Evelyn (August 1983). "Rediscovering the Natives of My Person". Jamaica Journal. Digital Library of the Caribbean. p. 61. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2011. Review of Erna Brodber's Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Romero, Ivette (July 2010). "Erna Brodber, Winner of the Bridget Jones Award for Caribbean Studies". Repeating Islands.com. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- "Traditional Folklore and the Question of History in Erna Brodber's Louisiana" by Jérémie Kroubo Dagnini for the Journal of Pan African Studies On-Line, December 2011.
- Mel Cooke, "Erna Brodber presents her freedom song", Jamaica Gleaner, 18 May 2007.
- Keshia Abraham, Interview with Erna Brodber, BOMB 86/Winter 2004. Script error: No such module "webarchive"..
- Nadia Ellis Russell, "Crossing borders - An interview with writer, scholar, and activist Erna Brodber" Script error: No such module "webarchive"., Woodside, Jamaica, 7 May 2001.
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