She built the room in which a literature could be heard.
Una Marson was born in Santa Cruz, Jamaica, on 6 February 1905, and became a poet, playwright, editor, and broadcaster who changed the shape of two literatures.
She staged her play At What a Price? in London’s West End in the early 1930s, among the first Black women to do so. During Emperor Haile Selassie’s exile in London she served as his personal secretary, accompanying him to the League of Nations in Geneva in 1936 as Ethiopia put its case to the world.
In 1943 she created the BBC programme Caribbean Voices, and over the next fifteen years it broadcast the work of writers including V. S. Naipaul, George Lamming, and Derek Walcott, giving a generation of Caribbean authors a platform and an audience. The programme reshaped modern British and Caribbean writing alike.
She died on 6 May 1965, having built the room in which a literature could be heard.
Her record is in the BBC archives and King’s College London archives. Her card is in the deck.
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Timeline
- 1905Born in Santa Cruz, Jamaica, on 6 February.
- 1933Staged At What a Price? in London’s West End, among the first Black women to stage a play there.
- 1936Served as personal secretary to Emperor Haile Selassie during his London exile, accompanying him to the League of Nations.
- 1941Joined the BBC.
- 1943Created Caribbean Voices, which broadcast Caribbean poetry and prose for fifteen years.
- 1965Died on 6 May, aged 60.
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I salute Una Marson, who built the room where a new literature could be heard.
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