Savacou

{{Short description|Caribbean literary journal, published 1970–1980}}

{{Infobox Magazine

| title = Savacou Magazine

| image_file = Savacou Magazine.jpg | image_size = 200px | image_caption =

| editor = Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Andrew Salkey, and John La Rose

| frequency = infrequently

| circulation =

| category = Cultural-Political Magazine

| company = Private

| founded = 1970

| firstdate =

| finaldate = 1980

| country = Jamaica

| language = English

| website = [http://www.chimurengalibrary.co.za/periodicals.php?id=14 Website]

| issn =

}}

Savacou: A Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement was a journal of literature, new writing and ideas founded in 1970{{cite book | first=Alison | last=Donnell | author-link=Alison Donnell | title=Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature: Critical Moments in Anglophone Literary History | publisher=Routledge | year=2007 | page=27}} as a small co-operative venture, led by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.

History

Characterised as "groundbreaking" by Alison Donnell,{{cite book | first=Alison | last=Donnell | title=Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature | year=2007 | page=18}} Savacou grew out of The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) of the 1960s, which was mostly concerned with Caribbean artistic production and with consolidating a broad artistic alliance between all "Third World" peoples. The journal took its name from the bird-god in Carib mythology who controlled thunder and strong winds. Issue 1 of Savacou was published in June 1970, edited by Brathwaite, Kenneth Ramchand and Andrew Salkey.{{cite web | url=http://www.savacoupublications.com/journals---out-of-print | title=Journals - Out of Print | website=Savacou Publications | access-date=7 April 2012}} Its advisory committee included John La Rose, Lloyd King, Gordon Rohlehr, Orlando Patterson, Sylvia Wynter, Paule Marshall and Wilfred Cartey, and among its early contributors were C. L. R. James, Michael Anthony, Derek Walcott, George Lamming, Martin Carter and John Figueroa.{{cite book | editor-first=Jenny | editor-last=Stringer | title=The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English | year=1996}}

The journal was the subject of regional controversy in 1970, with the double issue 3/4, "New Writing 1970: An anthology of poetry and verse". Featuring oral-based poetics, performance poetry and Creole verse, the issue questioned traditional divisions between words and music, literature and street culture, textuality and orality, antagonizing standard literary formats and in turn provoking major debates and discussions in Caribbean literary circles.{{cite book | first=Edward | last=Baugh | author-link=Edward Baugh | chapter=A History of Poetry | title=A History of Literature in the Caribbean | location=Philadelphia | publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company | year=2001}}

Between 1970 and 1979, fifteen issues of Savacou were published. The journal ceased publication in 1980 with issue 15.

The name Savacou also appears as a publishing imprint.{{cite book | first=Michael | last=Hughes | title=A Companion to West Indian Literature | publisher=Collins | year=1979 |page=115}}

This article uses text from the [http://www.chimurengalibrary.co.za/periodicals.php?id=14 Chimurengal Library] under the GFDL