Jamaica’s Dr Keith Ellis honoured by Cuba in Ottawa
JAMAICA’S DR Keith Ellis, professir emeritus of the University of Toronto, was honoured by the government of Cuba with the Haydée Santamaría Medal in a ceremony at the Cuban Embassy here recently.
Author of many books and essays on Latin American and Caribbean literature, Ellis has translated and made available to the Englishspeaking public the work of Cuba’s national poet, Nicolás Guillén, and the Free Verses of the National Hero, José Martí.
Bestowing the honour in the presence of Jamaican High Commissioner Janice Miller, Cuban Ambassador Josefina Vidal acknowledged Ellis’ invaluable work.
LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Born in St Mary and educated at Calabar High School, Ellis taught Latin American literature and culture at the University of Toronto from 1963 to 2000. Specialising in Latin American poetry and the short story, he is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on the poetry of Caribbean writer
Nicolás Guillén, and has translated all his works into English.
Ellis is the first black person to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a group of the top professors in the country elected by their peers.
In his acceptance speech, Ellis noted that while Cuba has not been able to keep dangerous hurricanes from invading its territory or that of its neighbours, it has been able to study this phenomenon scientifically in order to limit the harm it causes.
“The socialist country learned a great deal from devastating hurricanes which occurred in the first years of the revolution, from Hurricane Flora of 1963 in particular, which provoked a reaction that marked it as a Cuban cultural phenomenon. In the course of time, the Cuban socialist way of dealing with hurricanes and with natural disasters in general has been having an exemplary impact on other countries in both hemispheres.”
Ellis has lectured at many universities, including Yale, Cambridge, and The University of the West Indies campuses. In 1994, he was a visiting professor at Stanford University. In 1998, he made history by becoming one of the few scholars to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the 270-year-old University of Havana. He has published 18 books and more than 100 scholarly articles, and his poetry has been featured in various journals and books.