Paule Marshall[edit]

"Paule Marshall", original name Valenza Pauline Burke (born April 9, 1929 Brooklyn, New York ) is an African American author and poet whose work focused around African Americans and their African Heritage.

Early Life, Education and Career

Born in the United States, Paule Marshall was the daughter of Ada and Samuel Burke, both immigrants of Barbados. A "quite" and "retiring" child as most used to refer to her as, Ms. Marshall was an avid reader and spent countless hours in her neighborhood library. Although she grew up into a neighborhood with other West Indian families, Ms. Marshall went through a period of rejecting her West Indian heritage. She soon came to appreciate the culture as she was inspired by conversations between her mother and other Barbadian women.

When Ms. Marshall completed her high school education, she enrolled in Hunter College with plans of becoming a social worker. However, after a one year absence from college due to an illness, she decided, with some influence from her friends, to become a English Literature major instead. She later enrolled in Brooklyn College and graduated from the institute in 1954. After college, she worked briefly as a librarian before joining Our World Magazine, an African American magazine where she worked from 1953-1956 as a food and fashion editor.

Her first marriage, in 1957 was to Kenneth Marshall with whom she had a son, Evan Keith. She however divorced Kenneth Marshall in 1963 and in 1970 remarried to a Haitian business man, Nourry Menard.

Marshall often travelled on assignment to Brazil and the West Indies and once her literary career started she contributed short stories and articles to numerous magazines and anthologies and began lecturing at several colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. She received numerous awards including the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur fellowship and still now continues to write and teach. She is currently a professor of English and creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University and resides in Richmond, Virginia.

Contribution to the Caribbean

Marshall’s artistic vision evolves in a clear progression as she moves, through her creations, from an American to an African American/African Caribbean and, finally, a Pan-African sensibility. She examines the experience of blacks not from Africa to the New World, but from the New World toward Africa. Thus, her first major work, Brown Girl, Brownstones, considers the coming of age of a young West Indian girl and simultaneously explores the black emigrant experience in America. Throughout her novels it can be seen that she takes inspiration from all sources from the Caribbean to America, Barbados to [[British Columbia then Brazil and lastly from Africa to Grenada. She gave an insight to outsiders whom may not be aware of the Caribbean Culture and brought new appreciation to not only the Caribbean and its culture but the African culture and way of life. She made many aware of the life and experiences of the Caribbean people both in the past and present.

NOVELS

Her first book entitled Brown Girl, Brown Stones took shape over five years and and was published in 1959. Some of her later novels included:

• Soul Clap Hands and Sing (1961)
• Reena (1962),
• Some Get Wasted (1964)
• The Chosen Place, The Timeless People ((1969)
• Praissong For The Widow (1983)
• Daughters'Italic text (1992)