The term "West Indies" first began to achieve wide currency in the 1950s, when writers such as
Samuel Selvon,
John Hearne,
Edgar Mittelholzer,
V. S. Naipaul,
Andrew Salkey, and
George Lamming began to be published in the
United Kingdom. A sense of a single literature developing across the islands was also encouraged in the 1940s by the
BBC radio programme
Caribbean Voices, which featured stories and poems written by West Indian authors, recorded in London under the direction of founding producer
Una Marson and later
Henry Swanzy, and broadcast back to the islands. Magazines such as
Kyk-Over-Al in Guyana,
Bim in Barbados, and
Focus in Jamaica, which published work by writers from across the region, also encouraged links and helped build an audience. Many—perhaps most—West Indian writers have found it necessary to leave their home territories and base themselves in the
United Kingdom, the
United States, or
Canada in order to make a living from their work—in some cases spending the greater parts of their careers away from the territories of their birth. Critics in their adopted territories might argue that, for instance,
V. S. Naipaul ought to be considered a British writer instead of a Trinidadian writer, or
Jamaica Kincaid and
Paule Marshall American writers, but most West Indian readers and critics still consider these writers "West Indian". West Indian literature ranges over subjects and themes as wide as those of any other "national" literature, but in general many West Indian writers share a special concern with questions of identity, ethnicity, and language that rise out of the Caribbean historical experience. at the 2010
Brooklyn Book Festival One unique and pervasive characteristic of Caribbean literature is the use of "
dialect" forms of the national language, often termed
creole. The various local variations in the language adopted from the
colonial powers such as
Britain,
Spain,
Portugal,
France and the
Netherlands, have been modified over the years within each country and each has developed a blend that is unique to their country. Many Caribbean authors in their writing switch liberally between the local variation—now commonly termed
nation language—and the standard form of the language. Two West Indian writers have won the
Nobel Prize for literature:
Derek Walcott (
1992), born in St. Lucia, resident mostly in Trinidad during the 1960s and '70s, and partly in the United States since then; and
V. S. Naipaul (
2001), born in Trinidad and resident in the
United Kingdom since 1950. (
Saint-John Perse, who won
the Nobel Prize in 1960, was born in the French territory of
Guadeloupe.) Other notable names in (anglophone) Caribbean literature have included
Una Marson,
Earl Lovelace,
Austin Clarke,
Claude McKay,
Louise Bennett,
Orlando Patterson,
Andrew Salkey,
Edward Kamau Brathwaite (who was born in Barbados and has lived in Ghana and Jamaica),
Linton Kwesi Johnson,
Velma Pollard and
Michelle Cliff, to name only a few. In more recent times, a number of literary voices have emerged from the Caribbean as well as the Caribbean diaspora, including Kittitian
Caryl Phillips (who has lived in the UK since one month of age);
Edwidge Danticat, a
Haitian immigrant to the United States;
Anthony Kellman from Barbados, who divides his time between Barbados and the United States;
Andrea Levy of the United Kingdom; Jamaicans
Alecia McKenzie, who has lived in Belgium, Singapore and France, and
Colin Channer and
Marlon James, the author of the
2015 Man Booker Prize-winning novel
A Brief History of Seven Killings (as well as ''John Crow's Devil
, The Book of Night Women'', the unpublished screenplay "Dead Men", and the short story "Under Cover of Darkness"), Antiguan
Marie-Elena John, and
Lasana M. Sekou from
Saint Martin. == Themes of migration, landscape, nature ==