C.L.R. James
Historian, journalist and Marxist writer
C.L.R. James was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist writer. He wrote The Black Jacobins, a 1938 study of the Haitian Revolution.
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Trinidadian Born 1901 in Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago Died 1989
About C.L.R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901–1989) was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and political activist. He sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson. In 1937 he published World Revolution, a history of the Communist International, and in 1938 he wrote The Black Jacobins, about the Haitian Revolution. Minty Alley, which came out in 1936, was the earliest novel published in Britain by a black West Indian writer. James also wrote about cricket, and in 1963 he published Beyond a Boundary. His play Toussaint Louverture was staged in 1936, and it marked the first time black professional actors appeared in a UK production of a work by a black playwright. He was awarded the Trinity Cross, a top honor of Trinidad and Tobago.