Writer

The writer of the essay “The Pioneers: Fifty Years of Caribbean Migration to Britain” is Caryl Phillips. While the essay is conveyed in a rather formal and academic manner, its topic is also personal for the writer, because Phillips was born in the West Indies (the Caribbean) and his parents immigrated to England the same year he was born (1958). Consequently, when Phillips mentions “…when the first Caribbean migrants stepped off the ships in the 1940s and 1950s” (p. 31, ll. 21-22), he implicitly alludes to his parents as well.

At the time when Phillips wrote and published the essay, he was already a well-known writer in the UK, having received several awards for his novels. Furthermore, the audience already knew that he preferred topics related to immigration and African and Ca...