Professor Baugh's legacy will resound for a long time - Grange

The Minister of Culture Olivia Grange says that with the passing of Professor Edward Baugh, Jamaica and the Caribbean have lost a literary giant.

Grange said, “Professor Baugh will be remembered for a distinguished academic career during which he focused on West Indian literature, especially the study of Anglophone Caribbean poetry, and in particular the work of Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott."

She noted that he began writing poetry during his days at Titchfield High School and won a scholarship to study English literature at the University College of the West Indies. He later did postgraduate studies at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, and at the University of Manchester, where he earned a PhD in 1964.

“It is with much pleasure that I can remind us also that in 2012 he was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica. He was also the co-recipient of the 2021 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award along with colleague and fellow poet, Professor Mervyn Morris. That Award celebrates the contributions of editors, broadcasters, publishers, critics and others who have devoted their careers to developing Caribbean literature," Grange stated.

She also pointed out that Professor Baugh's poems appeared in various magazines and anthologies years before the publication of his first collection.

“It would require much more than this medium to say enough about the works of Professor Edward Alston Cecil Baugh, literary giant and Public Orator, whose voice has now gone quiet but whose legacy will resound with us for a long time," Grange said.

She expressed condolences to his immediate family, the UWI family, his friends and associates.

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