James, C L R

James, C(yril) L(ionel) R(obert)

(born Jan. 4, 1901, Tunapuna, Trin.—died May 31, 1989, London, Eng.) Trinidadian writer and political activist. As a young man he moved to Britain, where his first work, The Life of Captain Cipriani, was published in 1929. His study of Toussaint-Louverture, The Black Jacobins (1938), was a seminal work. During James's first stay in the U.S. (1938–53), he became friends with Paul Robeson. Eventually deported to Britain because of his Marxism and labour activism, James wrote on cricket for The Guardian. His Beyond the Boundary (1963) mixes autobiography with commentary on politics and sports. He returned to the U.S. in 1970 but eventually settled permanently in Britain.