Education and early career Born Sebastian Clarke in
Trinidad, he migrated as a teenager in 1965 with his six siblings to England, where their parents had come to work in a London factory. He studied playwriting at
Mountview Theatre School (1966–1967), began visiting
Paris in 1968 and connecting with Caribbeans and Africans there, then for four years from 1970 he lived in the United States, going there at the invitation of
Ed Bullins, who had been in London for the production of some of his plays. which included the
Caribbean Artists Movement. He worked as a freelance journalist in London between 1969 and 1981, writing on music, drama, and literature in such outlets as
Time Out, the
New Statesman,
New Musical Express,
Melody Maker,
Sounds,
Black Echoes,
Caribbean Times,
Race Today,
The New African, and he was the founding editor of the journal
Frontline. He also contributed to other international publications including
Essence,
The Amsterdam News,
Crawdaddy,
Présence Africaine,
UNESCO Courier,
Trinidad Newsday, and
Bendel Times (Nigeria). He received a certificate (distinction) and diploma (merit) in Egyptian Archaeology from the
Institute of Archaeology, University College London (1996–1998). CCI was inspired by the work of
Amiri Baraka, who founded a facility known as Spirit House in Newark, New Jersey. The centre "soon transcended its regional perspective and included work by Africans in any geographical location as well as progressive Europeans of any nationality, a model well preceded by
Society of African Culture in Paris." were highlighted by Saakana in a 1988
Washington Post article, which concludes: "Whatever the problems that have confronted the black press in London, it has injected into the mainstream an imaginative and dramatic body of diverse literature. ... Perhaps, then, indigenous black publishers have stirred the imagination of the mainstream and created an atmosphere, through conferences, forums, book fairs, etc., in which the black writer can be seen as an economic asset to a previously flagging British publishing industry." Alongside his work as commissioning editor of Karnak House, Saakana is an independent scholar and does research in Philosophy, Literary Theory and African World Literatures.
Writing Saakana's own books include poetry collections, the first study on Jamaican popular music, entitled
Jah Music (1980), a 1985 novel
Blues Dance (reviewing which
Polly Toynbee wrote in
The Guardian: "It is a harrowing book, bloody and violent, frightening and often mystifying, but through it all there is a surprising kind of optimism"),
As lecturer Saakana has lectured at many educational institutions in Britain and the US, including the
University of Warwick,
University of Keele,
Goldsmiths, University of London, the
Institute of Education,
University of Hull,
Leicester University,
University of Exeter,
University of Essex,
Reading University;
City College of New York,
Manhattan Community College,
Staten Island Community College,
Temple University,
Wellesley College,
University of Pennsylvania, and the
University of North London.
Media work Saakana directed and produced the films
Texturing the Word: 40 Years of Caribbean Writing in Britain (1985, featuring
George Lamming,
Edward Brathwaite,
Roy Heath,
Linton Kwesi Johnson,
Grace Nichols,
Marc Matthews), and ''Ida's Daughter: The World of
Eintou Pearl Springer'' (2010). He has also worked in various capacities on productions for the
BBC and
ITV. ==Selected bibliography==