Name Peter Kempadoo Role Writer | Books Guyana Boy | |
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Peter "Lauchmonen" Kempadoo (born 1926) is a writer and broadcaster from Guyana. He has also worked as a development worker in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. He moved in 1953 to the UK, where he built a career in print journalism as well as radio and television broadcasting, and published two novels, Guyana Boy (1960) and Old Thom's Harvest (1965), before returning to Guyana in 1970.
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Biography
He was born on a sugar estate to James Kempadoo, aka Lauchmonen, and Priscilla Alemeloo Tambran, both Tamils. Peter Kempadoo was educated first St. Joseph Anglican School, then went on at the age of 10, to attend Port Mourant Roman Catholic School. There he passed the Junior and Senior Cambridge examinations, before becoming a pupil-teacher at Port Mourant, and at 17, a certified teacher. Moving in 1947 to Georgetown, he trained as a nurse at Georgetown Public Hospital, and reported on hospital matters for the Daily Argosy until he was invited to join the staff.
Having married in 1952, Kempadoo migrated the following year with his family to England, where he worked for the BBC, and the Central Office of Information.
During this time he wrote his first novel, Guiana Boy. Published in 1960 (re-issued as Guyana Boy by Peepal Tree Press in 2002), this was the first novel by a Guyanese of Indian descent. It draws on his own life as the son of sugar workers to portray a world lacking in freedom, but where the workers struggle to maintain their identity as Madrassis in their rice plots, their fishing expeditions and in the feasts and festivities their ancestors brought from India. The Caribbean Review of Books has described the novel as "an intimate, clear-eyed portrait of Indo-Guyanese rural life", in which the author "channels the spirits of dignified misfits to dismantle the rigid hierarchies governing former plantation societies, all while honouring the polyglot traditions their descendants have elected to preserve."
In addition to Guyana Boy, he is the author of another novel, Old Thom's Harvest (1965), which focuses on religious and ethnic practices in the life of a rural family. Kempadoo's work has been anthologised in The Sun's Eye and My Lovely Native Land. He has also co-authored with his wife a booklet entitled A-Z of Guyanese Words.
In 1970, Kempadoo returned with his family to Guyana, where he produced local radio programmes such as Rural Life Guyana, We the People, Our Kind of Folk and Jarai (with Marc Matthews).
Kempadoo also lived for some years in Barbados, but has mainly been based in the UK.
Family life
Kempadoo married Rosemary Read in 1952. He is the father of novelist Oonya Kempadoo and photographer Roshini Kempadoo. He lives in Coventry, England.