Phyllis Shand Allfrey

Phyllis Shand Allfrey

Phyllis Byam Shand Allfrey (24 October 1908 – February 4, 1986) was a West Indian writer, socialist activist, newspaper editor and politician of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. [1] She is best known for her first novel, The Orchid House (1953), based on her own early life, which in 1991 was turned into a Channel 4 television miniseries in the United Kingdom.

Early life and family background

Born in Roseau, Dominica, West Indies, in 1908 into a white elite family, she was the daughter of Francis Byam Berkeley Shand and Elfreda (née Nicholls), and was baptized Phyllis Byam.[2] Her father's settler family was long established in Roseau as their family dominated Dominica for centuries. With roots in the West Indies going back to the 17th century, Phyllis later described herself as "a West Indian of over 300 years' standing, despite my pale face."[3]

Her earliest ancestor in the West Indies was Lieutenant General William Byam, a Royalist officer who in 1644 defended Bridgwater against a parliamentary force. Imprisoned in the Tower of London, he was permitted to migrate to the West Indies. After the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, he was granted estates in Antigua.[4]

Her ancestors included Napoleon's Empress Josephine and a descendant of Anne Boleyn's sister. Allfrey's father was Crown Attorney, and the family were considered as royalty. The emancipation of slaves (the source of their ancestral wealth) in 1838 began the long and painful process whereby the white grip on the island was loosened. By the 1950s and 60s, when the struggle for independence and the black power movement were taking root, the whites were in retreat, many fleeing from the prospect of black government by emigrating to England.

Allfrey's father was hostile to black Dominicans. "He kept his family apart from other races," she wrote, and Allfrey was denied formal schooling to prevent encounters with Catholics or people of colour who would soil her purity. She was taught privately at home, reading works such as the Oxford Book of English Verse , Rupert Brooke's poetry, and English Pastorals. The lush Dominican landscape, loud with Creole voices, was shut out from literary appreciation. Her father's house was a piece of foreign fields that was forever England.[5]

There was nothing in Allfrey's childhood and youth to suggest the trail-blazing radicalism of her later life. She was a scion of privilege, moving with the wealthy white visitors who anchored their yachts in Dominican waters. The American millionaire banker JP Morgan's son J.P. Morgan Jr. was a family friend, and through his patronage Allfrey was able to leave Dominica as a teenager and live in New York as well as London where she met her husband.[6] Her friends also included Adele hammond Olyphant and Emily Vanderbilt Sloane. [7]

Life and career

Phyllis Shand married Robert Allfrey, an English Oxford engineer, and they had five children, including their adopted sons, Robbie and David, from a Carib reservation. Their daughter Phina was killed in a motor accident in Botswana.

In politics, Allfrey founded the Dominica Labour Party. On the formation of the West Indies Federation, this was affiliated to the West Indies Federal Labour Party, and in 1958 she was elected to the new West Indies legislature, representing Dominica. Within weeks she was serving in the government of Sir Grantley Adams as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and was the only woman minister of the new Federation. In 1941 Allfrey established a connection with Tribune, the newspaper of the left wing of the British Labour Party where from 1941 to 1944 her reviews, poems and short stories appeared regularly alongside those of regular contributors like Naomi Mitchison, Stevie Smith, Julian Symons, Elizabeth Taylor, Inez Holden and George Orwell who became its literary editor in 1943.

She edited the Dominica Herald and also published and wrote for another newspaper, The Dominica Star, which was in being between 1965 and 1982.[8]

Death

Allfrey died in Dominica in 1986, aged 77.[2] A posthumous collection of her short stories, It Falls Into Place, was published in 2004.[9] She left behind an unpublished novel, In the Cabinet.[10] A collection of her poems, Love for an Island: the Collected Poems of Phyllis Shand Allfrey, was published in 2014 [11] Writer Dr. Carrie Gibson published "Empire's Crossroads" with novelists such as Dominica’s Jean Rhys and Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Trinidad’s V.S. Naipaul, and Haiti’s Edwidge Danticat who "have a global readership” with their numerous Hollywood films that have made Voodoo and zombies central themes that continue to fascinate audiences.[12]

Publications

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Staff, by Beinecke; findingaids.feedback@yale.edu, File format:. "Guide to the General Collection Manuscript Miscellany". Retrieved 2016-04-22.
  2. 1 2 Anne Commire, Deborah Klezmer, Women in world history: a biographical encyclopedia vol. 1 (1999), p. 236
  3. ↑ Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Phyllis Shand Allfrey: a Caribbean Life (Rutgers University Press, 1996), p. 6
  4. ↑ Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Introduction to Phyllis Shand Allfrey, The Orchid House (1996 edition), p, vi
  5. ↑ Dabydeen, David (2005-01-21). "Island dreams". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  6. ↑ Dabydeen, David (2005-01-21). "Island dreams". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  7. ↑ Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth (1996-01-01). Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813522654.
  8. ↑ Profile, dloc.com; accessed 18 November 2014.
  9. ↑ It Falls Into Place (Papillote Press, 2004, ISBN 0-9532224-1-1)
  10. ↑ Selwyn Reginald Cudjoe, Caribbean women writers: essays from the first international conference, p. 120
  11. ↑ "Love for an Island" (Papillote Press, 2014; ISBN 978-0-9571187-5-1)
  12. ↑ Hartman, Chris. "'Empire's Crossroads' offers a rich and thorough history of the Caribbean". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  13. ↑ 1st ed. by Constable, 1953; new edition by Virago, 1982
  14. ↑ Papillote Press, 2004
  15. ↑ Papillote Press, 2014

External links

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