Henry Swanzy: The Selected Diaries

Henry Swanzy (1915-2004) has an unrivalled position as the midwife of Caribbean writing in the post 1950s period. As the editor of the BBC Caribbean Voices programme (initiated by Una Marson) between 1946 and 1956, he was there as the careers of George Lamming, Edgar Mittelholzer, Jan Carew, V.S. Naipaul, Sam Selvon and many others took off in London. As a programme aimed in the first place at a Caribbean listenership, Swanzy encouraged writing that was authentic to its Caribbean roots, in language, theme and social concern. As an Irishman, Swanzy retained enough of a post-colonial sensibility to be positively sympathetic to the nationalist thrust of the writing. He was evidently well-respected by the writers to whom he offered both literary and personal support – and not least for his awareness of their pecuniary needs. Once Caribbean Voices was well established, it was left in the hands of Caribbean editors (including Mittelholzer and V.S. Naipaul) and Swanzy himself went off to Ghana in 1956 to encourage and support writers and broadcasting there. Thanks to the generosity of Swanzy’s heirs, his private and often amusingly indiscreet diaries of this period (known as “Ichabod”) have been made available and carefully edited and documented by the team of Niblett, Campbell and Smith. With an introduction that puts Swanzy and these radio programmes in context, this is both an essential, entertaining and highly readable book for anyone even remotely interested in the development of Caribbean writing. Not least of its value is the extensive appendix where Niblett et al. have documented all the writers mentioned in the diary. This, in itself, is a salutary reminder of the wealth of writing talent in both the Caribbean and Ghana that flowered in this period but then, in the absence of other opportunities, in many cases undeservedly disappeared from view.