Discipline: Literature

Samuel Selvon

Discipline: Literature
MacDowell Fellowships: 1955
Samuel Selvon (1923–1994) was a Trinidad-born writer. His 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners is groundbreaking in its use of creolised English, or "nation language," for narrative as well as dialogue. Selvon was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1955 and 1968), an honorary doctorate from Warwick University in 1989, and in 1985 the honorary degree of D.Litt. by the University of the West Indies. In 1969 he was awarded the Trinidad & Tobago Hummingbird Gold Medal for Literature, and in 1994 he was (posthumously) given another national award, the Chaconia Gold for Medal Literature. In 2012 he was honored with a NALIS Lifetime Achievement Literary Award for his contributions to Trinidad and Tobago's literature.

Studios

Phi Beta

Samuel Selvon worked in the Phi Beta studio.

Funded by the Phi Beta Fraternity, a national professional fraternity of music and speech founded in 1912, Phi Beta Studio was built between 1929–1931 of granite quarried on the MacDowell grounds. The small studio is a simple in design, but displays a pleasing combination of materials with its granite walls and colorful slate roofing. Inside is…

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