Michael Anthony

Michael Anthony (born 10 February 1930) is a Caribbean author and historian, who was named one of the "50 most influential people in Trinidad and Tobago".

Early life and education

Born in the county of Mayaro, Trinidad, on 10 February 1930, to Nathaniel Anthony and Eva Jones Lazarus, Michael Anthony was educated on the island at Mayaro Roman Catholic School and Junior Technical College in San Fernando. He subsequently took a job as a laundry worker in Pointe-à-Pierre for five years but had ambitions to become a journalist. Later on, poems of his were published by the Trinidad Guardian in 1954. Yet it was not enough for him to secure a new job locally and Anthony decided to further his career in the United Kingdom.

Career outside Trinidad

Anthony's voyage to the UK on board the Hildebrandt took place on December 1954. In England he held several jobs, including as a sub-editor at Reuters news agency (1964–68), while developing his career as a writer, writing short stories for the BBC radio programme Caribbean Voices.

In 1958 he married Yvette Phillips and they had four children — Jennifer, Keith, Carlos and Sandra Anthony.

Four years later, Anthony published his first book, The Games Were Coming, a cycling story inspired by real events. He followed up its success with The Year in San Fernando and Green Days by the River. He eventually returned to Trinidad in 1970, after spending two years as part of the Trinidadian diplomatic corps in Brazil, where his novel King of the Masquerade is set, and he worked variously as an editor, a researcher for the Ministry of Culture, and as a radio broadcaster of historical programmes. In 1992, he spent time at the University of Richmond in Virginia, teaching creative writing.

In his five-decade career, Anthony has had over 30 titles published, including novels, collections of short fiction, books for younger readers, travelogues and histories. He has also been a contributor to many anthologies and journals, including Caribbean Prose, Island Voices, Stories from the Caribbean, Response, The Sun's Eyes, West Indian Narrative, The Bajan, and BIM magazine.

Awards and honours

In 1979 Michael Anthony was awarded the Hummingbird Medal (Gold) for his contributions to Literature, and he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 2003.