Brathwaite, Edward Kamau (1930– )

West Indian historian and poet. Using calypso and work songs as well as more literary verse forms, he has explored the ways in which the West Indian legacy of slavery has been transcended by the traditions of ritual, music, and dance originating in West Africa, particularly in the long poem Masks (1968). Other works include Mother Poem (1977), Sun Poem (1982), and the nonfiction work The Folk Culture of the Slaves of Jamaica (1970).

Born in Barbados, he has combined an academic career at the University of the West Indies with an imaginative and scholarly commitment to the specifically African cultural heritage of the Caribbean.