Lee, Helene 1947(?)-

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LEE, Helene 1947(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1947.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Libération, 11, rue Béranger, 75154 Paris Cedex 03. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Libération, Paris, France, music journalist.

WRITINGS:

Rockers d'Afrique, Albin Michel (Paris, France), 1988. The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism, translated by Lily Davis and Helene Lee, edited an with an introduction by Stephen Davis, Lawrence Hill Books (Chicago, IL), 2003.

Lee's writings on music have appeared in international magazines and journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

French music journalist Helene Lee undertook a study of the man considered the founder and father of the Rastafarian movement in her biography of Leonard Howell, translated into English and published in the United States in 2003 as The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism. Inevitably, Lee's book also deals in part with reggae music whose practitioners, such as Bob Marley, are much better known to the world than Howell. Her biography was in part intended to redress that imbalance. Lee in fact first encountered the work of Howell in the late 1970s when visiting Jamaica to write about reggae. "'The music turned lousy and I chose to go beyond that and research the roots of rasta,'" Lee told Howard Campbell on IPS.

Lee managed, through "impeccable research and dogged sleuthing," as a contributor for Publishers Weekly commented, to produce an "extraordinarily useful book." She did extensive research in Jamaica, visiting the ruins of the commune, Pinnacle, which Howell founded and governed for fifteen years. Born in Jamaica, Howell moved to the United States in 1914, and was influenced by black nationalist leaders such as Marcus Garvey. He was deported in 1932 and began the roots of his movement, focusing on the return of God in the form of the Ethiopian King Ras Tafari, from whom the Rastafarian movement takes its name. Borrowing from Hinduism and from Ethiopian religions, he structured a new religion, gathered followers, and formed a commune. He found himself at odds with the Jamaican government for his religion's reverence of Ras Tafari rather than the English George V, as well as for its cultivation of marijuana as a cash crop. Things came to a head when the police raided Howell's commune in 1954; after that, the founder of Rastafarianism was lost in obscurity. The Publishers Weekly critic further called Lee's work a "passionate biography." Library Journal's L. Kris similarly found The First Rasta an "engaging account," while a writer for Kirkus Reviews commented that "the loose threads of Rasta history [are] impressively woven into a flag of green, red, and gold by French music journalist Lee." Vanessa Bush, writing in Booklist, noted that Lee "draws on extensive knowledge about the Rastafarian movement." Speaking with Campbell on the Jamaica Observer Online, Lee said, "'[Howell] has always been depicted as a crazy guy and a violent person which he was not.… With this book I'm trying to do him justice.'"