Michael Gilkes (writer)
Michael Gilkes (born 1933 in British Guyana) is a Caribbean critic, dramatist, filmmaker and university lecturer. He has been involved in theatre for more than 40 years,[1] as a director, actor and playwright.[2][3] He is married to Joan Gilkes, and they live in England.
Biography
His involvement with theatre began in his native Guyana when he was about 12 years old, working in school theatre, and he went on to become involved with the Theatre Guild of Guyana.[4]
Gilkes has taught at a number of universities in the Caribbean, Canada and the United Kingdom over the past 40 years, including the at the University of Kent at Canterbury, the University of Warwick,[5] the University of Guyana, the University of the West Indies (where he served as Reader in English and Head of the English department) in Barbados and the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia.[1] He has recently been a Quillian Visiting Professor at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.[6] In Bermuda he has directed plays and taught a theatre workshop put on by the Department of Community & Cultural Affairs at the Berkeley Institute.[4]
His work includes Couvade: a dream-play of Guyana (1974), Wilson Harris and the Caribbean Novel (1975), The Literate Imagination (1989) and Twayne.
Awards
His play A Pleasant Career, about the life and fiction of Edgar Mittelholzer, won the Guyana Prize for Drama in 1992.[1] Joanstown and other poems, a collection of poetry, won the Guyana Prize for Best Book of Poetry in 2002.[6] He won the Guyana Prize for Drama again in 2006 for his play The Last of the Redmen.[6]
References
- 1 2 3 "Michael Gilkes". The West Indian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12 April 2011.
- ↑ "Bermuda to take on Derek Walcott's play `Remembrance'", The Royal Gazette, 29 October 1998.
- ↑ "Walcott's `Remembrance' is a must-see!", The Royal Gazette, 7 November 1998.
- 1 2 Jessie Moniz, "'We unblock people'", The Royal Gazette, 9 March 2010.
- ↑ Kim Dismont, "Playwright explores Caribbean heritage in `Remembrance'", The Royal Gazette, 13 October 1998.
- 1 2 3 "Michael Gilkes". Peepal Tree Press. Retrieved 12 April 2011.
External links
- "Michael Gilkes discusses the role of the arts in personal and social development", Kaieteur News Online, 15 November 2009.
- "DRAMATIST MICHAEL GILKES Guyanese play REDMEN" on YouTube. "THE LAST OF THE REDMEN is a one-man tour-de-force theatre event about the plus and minus of the colonial experience in Guyana - the 'middle man' experience of growing up in the '40's and 50's. Michael plays everybody."
- Kim Lucas, "Dr Michael Gilkes – self-professed Mudhead", Stabroek News, 1 February 2003.