Joan Cambridge

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{{short description|Guyanese author and journalist}}

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| spouse = Julian Mayfield, 1973–1984 (his death)

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Joan Cambridge, also known as Joan Cambridge Mayfield,{{Cite news|last=Brooke|first=James|date=23 October 1984|title=Julian Mayfield, 56, an Actor and Writer on Black Themes|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/23/obituaries/julian-mayfield-56-an-actor-and-writer-on-black-themes.html|access-date=1 September 2020|issn=0362-4331}} is a Guyanese writer.{{Cite web|last=Cliff|first=Michelle|date=21 June 1987|title=Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home by Joan Cambridge (Ticknor & Fields: $15.95; 182 pp.)|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-21-bk-8730-story.html|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}}

Beginning in the 1960s, Cambridge worked as a journalist,{{Cite web|title=Joan Cambridge|url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1686219.Joan_Cambridge|access-date=1 September 2020|website=www.goodreads.com}} including as a reporter and as women's page editor of the Guiana Graphic, which later became the Guyana Chronicle.{{Cite journal|last1=Waters|first1=Robert Anthony|last2=Daniels|first2=Gordon Oliver|date=November 2010|title=Striking for freedom? International intervention and the Guianese sugar workers' strike of 1964|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682741003603102|journal=Cold War History|language=en|volume=10|issue=4|pages=537–569|doi=10.1080/14682741003603102|s2cid=154080206|issn=1468-2745}} She also appeared on the radio for the BBC.{{Cite web|title=The Exceptional George Barclay - Guyana's oldest journalist|url=https://guyanachronicle.com/2015/11/08/the-exceptional-george-barclay-guyanas-oldest-journalist/|first=Hubert|last= Williams|date= 8 November 2015|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Guyana Chronicle|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title=Julian Mayfield photograph collection – NYPL Digital Collections|url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/julian-mayfield-photograph-collection?filters%5Bdivision%5D=Schomburg+Photographs+and+Prints+Division&keywords=#/?tab=about|access-date=1 September 2020|website=digitalcollections.nypl.org}}

Cambridge met her husband, the American actor, writer, and civil rights activist Julian Mayfield, when they were both working at the Guyanese Ministry of Information and Culture. They married in 1973, and a few years later the couple left Guyana and moved to Washington, D.C., spending time in Germany as well.{{Cite web|title= Julian Mayfield papers|url=http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20734|access-date=1 September 2020|website=archives.nypl.org|publisher=The New York Public Library, Archives & Manuscripts}} Mayfield died in 1984, in Washington.{{Cite news|title=Julian Mayfield, Novelist and Actor, Dies at 56|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1984/10/23/julian-mayfield-novelist-and-actor-dies-at-56/f58bb84c-ff03-48de-8cbb-c049d3d5af57/|date=23 October 1984|access-date=1 September 2020|issn=0190-8286}} Cambridge returned to Guyana after his death, moving to the remote Yukuriba Falls in the Upper Demerara-Berbice region.{{Cite web|date=6 June 2014|title=Letters to the Editor: Remembering Maya Angelou|url=https://www.stabroeknews.com/2014/06/06/opinion/letters/remembering-maya-angelou/|first=Joan|last= Cambridge-Mayfield|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Stabroek News|language=en-US}}

While Cambridge had worked on a novel in collaboration with her husband, titled Murder on the East Bank, it was never published. She also wrote an unpublished autobiographical novel, Show Me the Way to Stay Home.

Her first novel, Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home, was published in 1987.{{Cite book|last=Cambridge, Joan.|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/732656271|title=Clarise Cumberbatch want to go home|date=1988|publisher=Women's Press|location=London|isbn=0-7043-4094-1|oclc=732656271}} It was written in a modified version of Guyanese Creole. It is about a Guyanese immigrant woman who comes to New York in search of her husband, who faces difficulties fitting in with both Americans and Guyanese Expatriates.{{Cite web|title=Fiction Book Review: Clarise Cumberbatch Want to Go Home by Joan Cambridge, Author Ticknor & Fields $15.45 (201p) ISBN 978-0-89919-403-5|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-89919-403-5|date=1 March 1987|access-date=1 September 2020|website=PublishersWeekly.com|language=en}} It is considered a representative work of Guyanese literature,{{Cite book|last=Peake|first= Linda| author2= D. Alissa Trotz|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1065332013|title=Gender, ethnicity and place : women and identities in Guyana|date=2014|publisher= Routledge|isbn=978-1-138-86730-7|oclc=1065332013}} part of a new wave of Guyanese women writers at the time.{{Cite web|title=Guyana chronicle|url=https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00088915/00191/40j|date=3 December 2006|

access-date=1 September 2020|website=ufdc.ufl.edu|language=en}}

Cambridge's work has also been featured in Margaret Busby's 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/30034116|title=Daughters of Africa : an international anthology of words and writings by women of African descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the present|editor-last=Busby|editor-first= Margaret|isbn=0-09-922421-6|date=1992|location=London|oclc=30034116}}

During her years living in the United States, Cambridge became involved in the Black literary scene, counting Maya Angelou among her social circle. Though she now lives in the Guyanese interior, she has continued to travel to and work in the United States, particularly New York and Washington.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/951754483|title=The novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950|last=Gikandi|first= Simon|isbn=978-0-19-062817-8|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2016|oclc=951754483}} In 2000, she participated in the Summer Institute fellows conference and D.C. Area Writing Project in Washington, D.C.,{{Cite web|title=Letters from Yukuriba with Joan Cambridge...|url=https://guyanachronicle.com/2015/12/13/letters-from-yukuriba-with-joan-cambridge/|date= 13 December 2015|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Guyana Chronicle|language=en-US}} and she has been involved with the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, including performing a reading at their symposium at Columbia University in 2004.{{Cite web|title=Guyana Cultural Association of New York Inc. Newsletters|url=https://issuu.com/guyanagraphichost/docs/october_2012_on-line_magazine_fin|date=October 2012|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Issuu|language=en}}

Cambridge continues to be involved in activism in her country and internationally, including advocating in defense of her native language Guyanese Creole{{Cite web|date=23 July 2017|title=Student feedback|url=https://guyanalanguagesunit.wordpress.com/student-feedback-writing-in-guyanese-creole/|access-date=1 September 2020|website=The Guyanese Languages Unit|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Letters to the Editor: Guyanese Creolese disrespected at International Mother Language Day event|first=Joan|last=Cambridge|url=https://www.stabroeknews.com/2019/02/24/opinion/letters/guyanese-creolese-disrespected-at-international-mother-language-day-event/|date= 24 February 2019|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Stabroek News|language=en-US}} and offering 100 acres of her land to resettle Haitians displaced by the 2010 earthquake.{{Cite web|title=Letters: The Haitians are an issue argued on innate racism|url=https://guyanachronicle.com/2019/08/06/the-haitians-are-an-issue-argued-on-innate-racism/|first=Barrington|last= Braithwaite|date= 6 August 2019|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Guyana Chronicle|language=en-US}}