Barbadian · 1930–2020
Kamau Brathwaite was a Barbadian poet, critic, and historian, one of the two or three most important figures in Caribbean literature. His poetry trilogy The Arrivants (1973) established him as the major Caribbean poet of African cultural continuity, in creative dialogue and tension with Derek Walcott's more classically grounded work. His critical writing, especially History of the Voice (1984), shaped the theoretical vocabulary of Caribbean literary studies.