Dr Erna Brodber’s unusual prose, with its poetic form and spiritually redemptive content is a celebration of African diasporic folk cultures. Myths and untold narratives from her native Woodside, St Mary Parish in Jamaica are explored as the source of ancestral power, collective and communal healing. Her work centres on the development of Caribbean literary aesthetics through the consistent use of Jamaican patois and oral traditions, a conscientious methodology that deconstructs dominant Western imperialist forms.

As a Pan-Africanist she is committed to the collectivism and unity of Africans in the diaspora and their continuing struggles for psycho-social emancipation from slavery and colonialism.Writer in residence and former lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Dr Brodber is an author, community activist, cultural historian and sociologist. In her own words, she is best described as ‘an intellectual worker.’ Four of her acclaimed novels, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994), The Rainmaker’s Mistake (2007) and collection of lectures The Continent of Black Consciousness (2007) were published by the UK’s foremost Black owned independent press New Beacon Books. A fifth novel, Nothing’s Mat (2014) was published by the University of the West Indies Press.

In this grounding with Dr Michelle Asantewa, Dr Brodber will share her personal story, her work as a community organiser and her life-long research and community project ‘Blackspace’ rooted in her beloved home village of Woodside.