IAN McDONALD, born in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad in 1933, is a poet, novelist, dramatist, and non-fiction writer. After moving to Guyana in 1955, he settled there until his eighties when he moved to Canada to be close to his children and grandchildren.
McDonald graduated from Cambridge University, England, with a Bachelor of Arts Honors Degree in History (1951-1955), and later received his Masters Degree. After graduation, he moved to then British Guiana to take up a post with the British company Bookers Ltd., then owners of the colony's sugar estates, where he rose to the position of Director of Marketing & Administration. When the company was nationalized in 1976, he remained as the Administrative Director of the newly formed Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo). Following his retirement in 1999, he spent the next eight years (2000-2007) as the CEO of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean.
His love for literature and writing began as a schoolboy. His first poems were published in the 1950s. Over the years his poems have appeared in Caribbean journals, British and American magazines, as well as many Caribbean anthologies of poems. His novel, The Hummingbird Tree (1969), later made into a BBC film (1992), is considered a Caribbean Classic.
His publication of poetry collections include:
• New and Collected Poems 1957-2017 (2018)
• River Dancer (2016)
• The Comfort of All Things (2012), winner of the 2012 Guyana Prize for Poetry
• Selected Poems (2008), shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatie Literary Prize
• Between Silence and Silence (2003), winner of the 2004 Guyana Prize for Poetry
• Jaffo the Calypsonian (1994)
• Essequibo (1992), winner of the 1992 Guyana Prize for Poetry
• Mercy Ward (1988), and
• Selected Poems (1983)
His honors and awards include:
• Theatre Guild of Guyana Lifetime Achievement Award (2013)
• Wordsworth McAndrew Award (2003) from the Guyana Cultural Association, New York/USA
• Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of the West Indies (1997)
• Golden Arrow of Achievement Guyana National Award (1986), and
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1970
Photo Credit: Peepal Tree Press (UK)
