An interview with best-selling author E.R. Braithwaite

By Petamber Persaud

E.R. Braithwaite receiving the CCH, Guyana’s third highest national award, from President Ramotar on Aug 23, 2012

Extract of an interview with Guyanese centenarian E. R. Braithwaite, who visited Guyana in August 2012. Braithwaite is the author of several books, including the world renowned “To Sir with Love” (1959), which was made into a movie of the same name; “Paid Servant” (1962), “A Kind of Homecoming” (1962), and “Honorary White” (1975).
During his visit, Braithwaite was bestowed with the Cacique Crown of Honour, and a Guyanese stage version of “To Sir with Love”, produced by the National Library, was performed in his honour to a capacity crowd at the National Cultural Centre.
ERB …Getting a job was a something totally different. However, it is a difficulty to explain how a black man feels when he is rejected over and over.  I did not think after a while that any application was useful. I had to think of something else. When I wrote this book, I was in a desperate situation – it was a situation of “what else could I do?” What else did these people want of me? I was fully qualified without work, but they always seem to want something else or something more; as if nothing I could produce would be good enough for them.
PP This same treatment was meted out to others persons – blacks and minorities in the UK at that time.
ERB But you see, the point is, I could not be the least bit concerned with others. I needed to pay the rent, I needed to eat, I needed something desperately for myself. I must confess it may sound very selfish to you, but if you had come along to me with the same tale, I wouldn’t have listened because my situation was such, it made me selfish. It made me oblivious of the concerns of others.
PP So after your first job in the classroom, you moved on into social work. This encounter produced another book. Why did you go on writing?
ERB I discovered a certain facility with language. I enjoyed, even when I reread the first book, I enjoyed the way I wrote certain passages, I enjoyed the way they sound to me.  There were persons who told me that they were energized by the way I used language. So, on the side, I began thinking about language.
PP The good use of language is the foundation of a good book, a good novel, a good read.
I did do a review of “To Sir with Love”’ for the local press – it’s online now; somehow these things appear online without leave or licence – and in that review I had many pleasing things to say about your writing. This brings me to the question – have you taught yourself to write fiction or the ways of writing.
ERB I just sat down and I wrote and I wrote, writing for myself.
PP Some writers do that. Some writers write and write and put the book in the domain of the reader and forget about it; are you such a writer?
ERB I must confess, I am. Once I have written a book, once I have come to the end, I leave it alone.
PP And move on to another book?
ERB Yes.
PP The basic theme in all of your writings is about discrimination in all forms, how to deal with societal ills. To me you did not confront the problems head-on, you used situations and your writings to show us how to deal with certain issues – was that your intention?
ERB Yes, to some degree. I discovered that I could use my work as an example, use the various stages I found myself and the way I dealt with them as an example.
It seems to me that I could only get work in certain situations but I got work that placed me in a position to influence the way other people lived and I used that to my advantage. This book, “To Sir with Love”, is a very important book in our literature because it was valued good enough to be adapted to another art form – adapted to film.
PP So far we have travelled with you to the UK only – we’re still to go to Africa and America. Now I’d like to bring you back to Guyana and get a peek into your formation years here because it is here, in Guyana, where your sense and sensibilities were formed: primary school, secondary school – Queen’s College.  You spoke glowingly about Queen’s College; how schooling was enjoyable, a pleasure; how students saw learning as an achievement. Let’s talk about those formative years in Guyana.
ERB It was exciting period particularly for me ….
PP (After a long pause) Too many things are coming to mind.
ERB Yes, things are coming to mind. I don’t know whether my teachers expected more of me. I was quite poor, and in those days those students whose parents were wealthy gave evidence of it. There were lots of things I couldn’t afford; however, one thing in which I took great pride was language. Anything I had to write was well done because it was something in which I could be competitive…
PP And express yourself well.
ERB I expressed myself very well.
PP In the finest use of language.
ERB (A prolong nod) And I think that comes out in “To Sir with Love”.
PP And your other writings.
ERB Yes. Someone said to me the language in my book is simple.
PP The hallmark of good writing. Is there another book in you?
ERB Yes, of course.
PP Who were some of the other writers with whom you came into contact while writing in the UK?
ERB Before I ever started writing I would meet with these young men, and we would get together over a cup of coffee or something. I was an observer. I had written nothing and these were established writers – Jan Carew, [Edgar] Mittelholzer and the rest of them.
One day I wrote a short story and attempted to join in the conversation but I was given short hearing….I didn’t attempt anything else until I wrote “To Sir with Love” and I didn’t tell them about it until they saw it published. So the next time we met, I sat quietly among them until they started commenting on it.
PP This would be a good place to end – the way you used your writing to do your talking.

Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com

What’s happening:
• The current issue of The Guyana Annual magazine is dedicated to E. R. Braithwaite author of “To Sir with Love”. Tributes, reviews of his publications, and related articles are invited for possible inclusion in the magazine.  You may also submit poems, short stories and articles of interest. For further information, please contact me at the above telephone number or/and email address.
• My book, “The Balgobin Saga”, was used to produce a fourteen-minute docudrama, “The Legend of Balgobin”. This docudrama was produced by the Centre for Communication Studies, University of Guyana. Copies of the film are available at the centre; copies of the book are available from Austin’s Book Service.