Eric Derwent Walrond
Eric Derwent Walrond was born in Georgetown, British Guiana, to a Barbadian mother and a Guyanese father in 1898. At the age of eight his father left, and Eric and his mother moved to Barbados, where his schooling began. They then moved to Panama in 1911 whilst the Canal was being constructed (between 1904 – 1914). Walrond’s education was completed in Panama and he became fluent in Spanish as well as English. After he left school, he trained as a secretary and stenographer, gaining employment as a clerk Health Department of the Canal Commission. He was also a reporter for the ‘Panama Star Herald’ newspaper. In 1918 he immigrated to New York, where he attended Columbia University.
Walrond had various jobs in New York and also developed as a writer. In 1921 he wrote a sketch called “A Senator’s Memoirs” about a ‘united Africa’ and this won a prize sponsored by Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
After editing and co-owning the Brooklyn and Long Island Informer from 1921 – 1923, he was hired as an editor for Negro World, the paper owned by Garvey’s UNIA. During the 1920s, Eric was a contributor to various publications including Vanity Fair, Negro World and Opportunity Magazine, amongst others.
His first published short story, during the early 1920s, was called ‘The Palm Porch’. It starkly describes the ransacking of the land in the Canal Zone of Panama. During the 1920s, several other stories were published including ‘On Being Black’ (1922) and ‘Vignettes of the Dust’ (1924). Walrond’s only printed book, a collection of 10 stories called ‘Tropic Death’ was published in 1926. In 1928 and 1929, Walrond was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction.
‘Tropic Death’ is set against a lush Caribbean backdrop and contrasts images of natural beauty with terse descriptions of misery and death, heat and suffocating racism. Eric Walrond’s lyrical narrative writing style has variously been described as “unsentimentally if elegantly observing his themes of power and pride, the paranormal and a natural world as savage as it is beautiful” and “impressive, by his ability to confront life’s pitilessness in such exquisitely crafted prose”. Biographer Arnold Rampersad notes that “Walrond’s commitment to dialect makes ‘Tropic Death’ difficult reading at times”, but also hails the book as “one of the outstanding works of fiction of the Harlem Renaissance.” His fiction often captures the experiences of working-class peoples as they confront racial prejudice, colonialism and economic exploitation.
The term ‘Harlem Renaissance’ refers to a developing movement of African American culture from around 1918 to 1937. This term was used particularly in the creative arts, and became the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualise “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced Black peoples’ relationship to their heritage and to each other. The renaissance was not only happening in the Harlem area of New York City, it also had a significant influence on Black literature and worldwide recognition. As there were so many intellectuals and talented artists in Harlem, the name became the symbolic capital of the culture.
After travelling around the Caribbean and France from 1928 – 1931, Eric Walrond moved to London. Seen by some as an ‘unknown quantity’, he became still more reclusive at this time.
From 1939 – 1952 he lived in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. During 1952, Walrond acknowledged he could no longer manage his mental health issues and admitted himself to the Roundway Psychiatric Hospital. The reason is not entirely known, although it has been suggested that he suffered from depression. During his five years in the hospital, he continued to write, with some works being published in the hospital’s monthly pamphlet. These were published in 2012 under the title ‘In search of asylum: the later writings of Eric Walrond’.
After leaving Roundway in 1957, he returned to London, keen to re-establish his literary career. Walrond was involved with a theatrical production at the Royal Court theatre following the 1958 Notting Hill race riots.
Walrond suffered a heart attack on a London street on 8 August, 1966, aged 67. He is buried in an unmarked common grave in a section near Watts’ Walk. A memorial was carved in 2008 by a member of the Abney Park stone carver’s group and this stands near his burial spot.
Sometimes neglected, Eric Walrond was a prominent and significant author who is now being recognised more widely, in part thanks to rediscovered writings and the re-print of ‘Tropic Death’ after 30 years. ‘Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance’ by James C Davis was published in 2015 and is a definitive biographical book about Walrond’s life and writings.