I CAME INTO THE WORLD on October 1, 1956; Bridgetown, Barbados, was my point of entry. It’s here that I grew up, until I left to join my mother and attend university in Washington, DC.
I was one of those West Indian children whose parents migrated in search of economic improvement, leaving them in the care of granny or auntie. I am an only child.
My love affair with books began while I was in primary school when a neighbour took my cousins and me to join Barbados’ National Library. Three books were the most you could borrow, so I would take mine home and read them all that day, and wait impatiently for the next Saturday trip to the library.
Reading was a habit that my mother encouraged. I’m told that I used big words as a little girl, and once my aunt’s friend Maude laughingly challenged me to spell them. I responded that “I may not be able to spell them, but I know how to use them correctly.” As my childhood tastes evolved from Enid Blyton and high school texts, Mum would send me the latest books from my favourite authors—V.S. Naipaul, Toni Morrison, or Gabriel García Márquez. For me, Gabo’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold is one of his most intriguing.
My early writing efforts brought me some trauma, though. While attending Mr Wharton’s lessons, he had to be convinced that I was really the author of one particular essay. If not, his famous leather strap threatened. My uncle came to my rescue as a trusted witness.
While at Howard University, my first submission to a publication was accepted by Essence magazine. It appeared as “Barbados: My Place in the Sun” in the December 1978 issue. The editor wrote to me, “You are a talented writer, and I hope this is one of many more efforts. Your style is strong and clear, without the artifice that mars the more self-conscious writer’s work.” That was a big boost to my confidence, and the first time I was paid for my writing, too.
I graduated summa cum laude from Howard with a BA in Radio Production and English Literature. Soon after graduation, I was off to Honolulu, Hawaii, to begin flight attendant training with Pan Am. After two years of travelling around the world from my San Francisco base, I returned to Barbados and to journalism in 1981. My first job back was with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation. I eventually moved on to the Caribbean Broadcasting Union.
While working, I studied part-time at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies and graduated with an MA in English and later a PhD in History. My doctoral research was the basis for my book Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados. It’s the story of some of the adventurous Barbadians who migrated to Cuba, drawn by the prospect of work opportunities in the expanding sugar industry. It is also a record of how they faced life in a foreign environment.
Maradell Green shared experiences about living in Central Baraguá:
People used to walk from Oriente to Baraguá. They were generally men. When people hear that men come in, everybody would push open their window to see the new men. They come up tired and hungry and so on, and Bajan people love to entertain. Everybody take in a few. People didn't rob and steal then. People used to try to accommodate people. The people would walk from distant places when they seeing hardship in the other places. Or they hear about Baraguá and they hear about these people up there, they will walk all night and they find something to eat along the road. And we hear a band of men coming and we get up.
After many years as journalist and corporate communicator, I’m now accepting the title of author. I had tested the waters in Barbados’ National Independence Festival of Creative Arts (NIFCA), winning bronze awards for my literary arts entries in 1988 and 1991. Achieving an Honourable Mention in the 2018 Casa de las Américas Literary Awards – after being a finalist in the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards – for my first published book is humbling. My work is being mentioned in the same space as previous Barbadian winners, literary giants Kamau Brathwaite and Austin Clarke! Kamau’s poetry and Clarke’s prose set the bar high for those who aspire to follow in their footsteps.
I write in my head before I try to capture the words and ideas on my laptop. So then it becomes a process of giving shape and structure to these ideas, not unlike a sculptor seeking to reveal the form trapped in a block of wood or a piece of marble. I think that all good writing should inspire some emotion in the reader. I want to take advantage of every opportunity to hone my craft as a writer, and I hope to continue to produce work readers find worthwhile.
From a lifetime’s fascination with words, it’d be hard to pick those that have captured me most. But here are five that I like:
1. Beloved – not just loved, but beloved, biblical, title of a Toni Morrison novel.
2. Obfuscate – one of my high school English teachers introduced me to this word; don’t think she was guilty of this.
3. Conundrum – just like the sound of it.
4. Serendipity – while I understand the concept, I still think that there are no coincidences; everything is part of a grand plan.
5. Denouement – I learned this word while studying Shakespeare. As a Francophile, I appreciate the word’s origin; as a neat freak, I like it when things are tidily resolved by story’s end.
