KAMAU BRATHWAITE, born in Barbados in 1930, is an internationally celebrated poet, performer, and cultural theorist. Co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement, he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge and has a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex in the U.K. He has served on the board of directors of UNESCO's History of Mankind project since 1979, and as cultural advisor to the government of Barbados from 1975-79 and since 1990. His awards include the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the Charity Randall Prize for Performance and Written Poetry. He has received both Guggenheim and Fulbrights fellowships, among many others.

His book The Zea Mexican Diary (1993) was the Village Voice Book of the Year. Over the years, he has worked in the Ministry of Education in Ghana, and taught at the University of the West Indies, Southern Illinois University, the University of Nairobi, Boston University, Holy Cross College, Yale, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard. Brathwaite is currently Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, and shares his time between CowPastor, Barbados and New York City.