26/08/2023
Celebrating Michael Anthony
Michael Anthony the researcher
AUTHOR Michael Anthony is ailing. His mind is still sharp. But his body is now failing. He turned 93 in February. By any measure, it has been long and influential life. He will likely not write again. But he has amassed a formidable body of work, and will live forever, in those pages. We celebrate him here.
Before roads reached Mayaro from the north and west, the long-ago traveller had three options.
Walk or ride the “Indian Footpath” across the island from San Fernando; take the round-the-island ferry; or take a hike from Sangre Grande to the broad, runway-smooth beach that emerges along much of the east coast every low tide, since forever.
The place has always been alluring. It was named and settled by Trinidad’s First Peoples, who ended up having to share their land with the Capuchin priests of Catalonia, Spain, when the holy men set up a Roman Catholic mission there in 1690 in order to deceive and convert.
The grab was complete in 1783, when then-Spanish Governor Jose Maria Chacon, under the Cedula of Population, granted lands to French royalists along the coastline, which is now too expensive to buy, except by millionaires.
The land would be developed into estates of sugar, cotton, coffee, coconut and cocoa—St Joseph, Beau Sejour, Plaisance, Beaumont, St Ann’s, Radix, Ste Marguerite and Lagon Doux—with remnants of this plantation past still being seen if you look close enough.
Some place names have been lost to time, among them Lagon Mahaut, the village south of Plaisance, and the birthplace of one of Mayaro’s most famous sons, author Michael Anthony.
His name is known to just about every secondary school graduate who has read one of his novels as part of the English literature syllabus. His historical newspaper articles made essential reading. And his books on the people, places and history of Trinidad and Tobago are a priceless record on which others have built and added.
It’s an impressive career for a local writer, in a country where writers can expect little reward or recognition for work that would be celebrated elsewhere. But there are a few things about Anthony you will find even more remarkable.
He was 93 years old in February this year. Before his typing fingers were stilled, he had already completed 35 books.
The man from Mayaro, who now lives in Maraval (after sojourns in Chaguanas, England, the United States and Brazil) also has, as many of us do, a compelling story of how it all came to be.
His mother came from the 34-square-kilometre island of Carriacou, a dependency of Grenada, and his father from Fifth Company, Moruga.
Anthony (home name, Sonnyboy) has a memory as an infant of visiting the village shop with his father, and being more interested in the pencils than the sweets, and of being able to read effortlessly from an even younger age.
He recalls that at age six, the family moved to a home at Plaisance, next-door to the Old Mayaro Post Office (which still stands today...crookedly), where the post-mistress loaned him dozens of books in exchange for him recounting the stories.
“If you had asked me at age eight what I wanted to be, I would have told you it would be a writer,” Anthony said during an interview at his home on Long Circular Road some years back. “I wanted to tell stories like the ones I read.”
Anthony’s father (Nathaniel) died when he was ten years old. And it was only at age 11, when he left to spend that year in San Fernando (an experience that would provide the material for his book, The Year in San Fernando), that Anthony saw places outside of Mayaro. That was in 1941.
He returned to San Fernando in 1944, having won a bursary to the Junior Technical School, which allowed him entry into the operations of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, where he worked in the foundry for five years and never liked it.
However, the company had a vibrant sports club, so Anthony took up athletics. By the end of the five-year apprenticeship period, he was composing poems that were being published regularly in the Trinidad Guardian, then the only daily newspaper.
The dream, however, was to write and have published the “short story”.
Journey to writing
It was in 1953 that his friend, Canute Thomas, someone with whom he trained and ran in the Southern Games (placing third twice in the 100 metres), got a scholarship from the company (then Trinidad Leaseholders Ltd) to go to London.
Anthony recalled: “As soon as he got to England, he wrote me saying, ‘Why don’t you try to come up here? You are always talking of wanting to be a writer. This is the place to come. Publishers all around. Why don’t you try and come.’”
Author Michael Anthony with Express writer Richard Charan
The next year, Anthony, following his dreams, was on a steamship bound for England.
Anthony said he settled in quickly with the help of Thomas, and contacted the Overseas Section of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which ran a programme of verse and prose that was broadcast to the Caribbean.
They were just changing their programme producer. The new one was coming from famed Oxford University. His name—Vidia Naipaul, a literary legend who belonged to Trinidad for the first 18 years of his life and who would go on to be regarded as one of the finest writers of the 20th century.
Anthony recalled sending Naipaul a short story and two poems for his consideration.
Naipaul replied.
“He sent for me and he said, ‘Mr Anthony, your short story has possibilities, but promise me you will not write another poem.’”
It should have been a moment to crush the spirit. However, it propelled Anthony to become one of the most prolific local writers ever.
• Next Wednesday—Anthony comes home.
Anthony’s work
In 2020, Anthony launched his 35th book, The Sound of Marching Feet, focusing on the impact American soldiers had on Trinidad and Tobago during the Second World War.
His first book was in 1963 with the publication of The Games Were Coming.
He was the recipient of the Hummingbird Medal for his contribution to literature; awarded an honorary doctorate from The University of the West Indies; and received a lifetime literary award from the National Library.
Some of his most notable works include Green Days By The River, All That Glitters, The Year in San Fernando, King of the Masquerade, Caribbean Folk Tales and Fantasies, and Cricket In The Road.
The books by author Michael Anthony
His works also included several history and travel books on Trinidad and Tobago.
In 2017, one of Anthony’s popular books, Green Days By The River, was made into a movie.
The local drama was directed by Michael Mooleedhar and was shown at the opening of the 2017 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival
