Jane Bryce
{{short description|British author, journalist, literary critic and academic (born 1951)}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| honorific_suffix=
| image =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1951}}
| birth_place = Lindi, Tanzania
| education =
| alma_mater = Obafemi Awolowo University
| occupation = Writer, journalist, literary critic and academic
| partner = Philip Nanton{{cite book|url=https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526114921/9781526114921.00006.xml|title=Frontiers of the Caribbean|chapter=Acknowledgements|first=Philip|last=Nanton|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=9781526114921|date=30 January 2017}}
| notable works =
| awards =
| website = {{website|https://www.janebryce.com/}}
}}
Jane Bryce (born 1951) is a British writer, journalist, literary and cultural critic, as well as an academic. She was born and raised in Tanzania, has lived in Italy, the UK and Nigeria, and since 1992 has been based in Barbados. Her writing for a wide range of publications has focused on contemporary African and Caribbean fiction, postcolonial cinema and creative writing, and she is Professor Emerita of African Literature and Cinema at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.{{cite web|url= https://www.bocaslitfest.com/participant/jane-bryce/|title=Jane Bryce|publisher=Bocas Lit Fest|access-date=11 December 2022}}
She edited the anthology Caribbean Dispatches: Inside Stories of the Caribbean (2006), and is the author of a 2007 collection of short fiction, entitled Chameleon.
Background
=Early years=
Jane Bryce was born in 1951 in Lindi, Tanzania, and grew up in Moshi.{{cite journal|url=https://www.tzaffairs.org/about-2/contributors/|title=Contributors|journal=Tanzanian Affairs|issue=85|publisher=Britain-Tanzania Society|access-date=11 December 2022}} She was educated at schools in Tanzania until the age of 13, when she was sent to school in England. As she said in an interview in African Writing, "I have a British passport, because when I was born in Tanzania, it was a British protectorate. We were given the choice of citizenship at 'Uhuru' [independence] and my father opted for British. As he was deported under the Africanization policy, perhaps it's as well, but then again, if we'd been Tanzanian citizens we wouldn't have been deported." As by now her father was working for the UN agency FAO, the family left for Rome in 1968 when she was seventeen.
=Further education and career=
In the 1980s, Bryce worked as a freelance journalist both in London and while studying for a PhD in Nigeria, where she did doctoral research on Nigerian women's writing at Obafemi Awolowo University, from 1983 to 1988, earning a PhD.
In 1992, she moved to Barbados, becoming an active member of the Caribbean literary community. She taught African literature and cinema, in addition to creative writing, at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, and was editor of Poui: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing (first published in 1999) for 20 years, since its founding,{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wasafiri.org/article/a-towering-figure-tribute-to-kamau-brathwaite-1930-2020/|title='A Towering Figure': Tribute to Kamau Brathwaite (1930-2020)|magazine=Wasafiri|date=14 February 2020|access-date=7 January 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://writersmosaic.org.uk/people/jane-bryce/|title=Jane Bryce|website=Writers Mosaic|publisher=Royal Literary Fund|access-date=11 December 2022}}{{cite web|url=https://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/LLL/poui/poui/editorial-committee.aspx|title=POUi: Editorial Committee|website=Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Education|publisher=The University of the West Indies|location=Cave Hill, Barbados|access-date=7 January 2022}} and a noted contributor of poetry to the journal.{{cite news|url=https://www.stabroeknews.com/2008/10/19/features/arts-on-sunday-46/|title=Arts On Sunday|first=Al|last=Creighton|newspaper=Stabroek News|date=19 October 2008}}
She also founded the Barbados Festival of African and Caribbean Film, of which she was a director from 2002 to 2007, and she was Barbados curator of the Africa World Documentary Film Festival (2009–2016).
She has contributed over the years to a wide range of academic journals and essay collections.{{cite web|url=https://www.bimlitfest.org/authors/jane-bryce|title=Jane Bryce {{!}} Writer and Professor|publisher=Bim Literary Festival & Book Fair|access-date=11 December 2022}} She compiled the anthology Caribbean Dispatches: Beyond the Tourist Dream (Macmillan UK, 2006), and is the author of the 2007 collection Chameleon and Other Stories (Peepal Tree Press).{{cite book|url=https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/chameleon-and-other-stories|title=Chameleon and Other Stories|publisher=Peepal Tree Press|date=2007|isbn=9781845230418}} In 2023 she published Zamani: a Haunted Memoir of Tanzania (UK: Cinnamon Press).
Bryce has served as a judge for literary awards both locally and regionally, including the Guyana Prize for Literature{{cite web|url=https://demerarawaves.com/2013/09/16/guyana-prize-for-literature-winners-announced/|title=Guyana Prize for Literature winners announced|website=Demerara Waves|date=26 December 2015|access-date=11 December 2022}} and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.{{cite news|url=https://newsday.co.tt/2019/05/05/tts-kevin-adonis-browne-wins-ocm-bocas-prize/|title=TT's Kevin Adonis Browne wins OCM Bocas Prize|first=Keino|last=Swamber|newspaper=Trinidad and Tobago Newsday|date=5 May 2019|access-date=11 December 2022}}
In 2017, she was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study at Indiana University.{{cite web|url=https://ias.indiana.edu/news-events/2017-review/jane-bryce.html|title=Visiting Fellow: Jane Bryce|first=Akin |last=Adesokan|author-link=Akin Adesokan|publisher=Indiana University Bloomington|access-date=11 December 2022}}{{cite web|url=https://ias.indiana.edu/news-events/2017-review/index.html|title=2017 In Review {{!}} Visiting Fellows|publisher=Indiana University Bloomington|date=2017|access-date=11 December 2022}}
In 2022, she guest-edited an edition of the online magazine WritersMosaic (an initiative of the Royal Literary Fund) entitled "Is english we speaking: African/Caribbean dialogue", contributors to which included Billy Kahora, Colin Grant, Stewart Brown, Funso Aiyejina, Philip Nanton, Tendai Huchu, Claire Adam and Robert Taylor.{{cite web|url=https://writersmosaic.org.uk/content/is-english-we-speaking-african-caribbean-dialogue/|title=Is english we speaking: African/Caribbean dialogue|website=Writers Mosaic|date=2022|access-date=11 December 2022}}
Bibliography
- Caribbean Dispatches: Beyond the Tourist Dream, editor (Macmillan Caribbean, 2006, {{ISBN|978-1405071369}})
- Chameleon and Other Stories (Peepal Tree Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-1845230418}})
- Zamani: a Haunted Memoir of Tanzania (Cinnamon Press, 2023, {{ISBN|9781788649865}})
=Selected articles and book chapters=
- {{"'}}Animal can’t dash me human rights{{'"}}, Index on Censorship, volume 18, issue 9, 1989.{{cite journal|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03064220221084534|title='Animal can't dash me human rights'|journal=Index on Censorship|volume=51|issue=1|date=2022|pages=76–78|doi=10.1177/03064220221084534 |access-date=2 January 2023|last1=Bryce |first1=Jane |s2cid=247631340 }}
- "Peter Abrahams: The View From Coyaba", Caribbean Beat, issue 61, May/June 2003.{{cite magazine|url= https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-61/view-coyaba#axzz7phX0QdMm|title=Peter Abrahams: The View From Coyaba|magazine=Caribbean Bean|issue=61|date=May–June 2003|access-date=7 January 2023}}
- "Unterrified consciousness" (on It Falls Into Place by Phyllis Shand Allfrey), Caribbean Review of Books, May 2005.{{cite journal|url=https://www.caribbean-beat.com/online-exclusives/unterrified-consciousness|title=Unterrified consciousness|first=Jane|last=Bryce|journal=Caribbean Review of Books|date=May 2005|via=Caribbean Beat|access-date=11 December 2022}}
- [http://smallaxe.net/sxsalon/discussions/poems-penitence-and-pilgrimage "Poems of Penitence and Pilgrimage"], sx salon, October 2010.
- "Riffing on Omeros: The Relevance of Isaac Julien to Cultural Politics in the Caribbean", Small Axe, 14:2, 2010.{{cite journal|url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/small-axe-142|title=Riffing on Omeros: The Relevance of Isaac Julien to Cultural Politics in the Caribbean|journal=Small Axe |volume=14|number=32|first=Jane|last=Bryce|publisher=Duke University Press|date=2010|access-date=11 December 2022}}
- {{"'}}Who No Know Go Know': Popular Fiction in Africa and the Caribbean". In Simon Gikandi (ed.), The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950, Oxford University Press, 2016.
- "Snapshots taken along the way", Writers Mosaic.{{cite web|url=https://writersmosaic.org.uk/content/snapshots-taken-along-the-way-jane-bryce/|title=Snapshots taken along the way|first=Jane|last=Bryce|website=Writers Mosaic|access-date=11 December 2022}}
- [https://writersmosaic.org.uk/close-up/in-my-mind-i-live-there-abdulrazak-gurnah-the-nobel-prize-and-the-bawabs/ "Abdulrazak Gurnah: 'In my mind I live there{{'"}}]. Writers Mosaic, 5 October 2022.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://www.caribbean-beat.com/author/jane-bryce#axzz7pGx6Y76K Jane Bryce] at Caribbean Beat.
- [https://www.janebryce.com/ Official website]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryce, Jane}}
Category:21st-century British non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century British women writers
Category:British expatriates in Barbados
Category:British women academics
Category:British women journalists