Brodber, Erna (1936–)
Brodber, Erna (1936–)
Jamaican novelist and poet. Born April 20, 1936, in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica; sister of Velma Pollard (b. 1937, writer); University College of the West Indies, London, BA with honors, 1963, MS in Sociology; University of West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, PhD in History.
Won Ford Foundation scholarship for study in US (1967); embraced Rastafarianism and worked as freelance journalist; won critical acclaim for 1st novel, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980); won Commonwealth Regional Prize for 2nd novel, Myal (1988); named Whichard Distinguished Professorship in Women's Studies at University of West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica (2003); nonfiction works include Abandonment of Children in Jamaica (1974), A Study of Yards in the City of Kingston (1975), Perceptions of Caribbean Women: Towards a Documentation of Stereotypes (1982) and Oral Sources and the Creation of a Social History in the Caribbean (1983). Awarded Musgrave Gold award for Literature and Orature from government of Jamaica.