Jan R. Carew

CAREW, JAN R., of Agricola village, Guyana, passed away on December 6, 2012 leaving wife, Joy Gleason Carew, daughters, Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, Shantoba Eliza Carew; and son, David Christopher Carew; grandchildren Iseult Teran, Alexander Macbeth, and Benicio Carew; and great-grandson, Felix Radford. He also leaves his sister, Sheila Thorpe; nephews, E. Nigel Harris, Michael Harris; and nieces, Alexis Selman and Denise Harris.

He chose cremation and his remains will be interred with his wife's family in Winston-Salem, NC.

Jan Carew was born on September 24 1920, the middle child and only son of Ethel Robertson and Alan Carew. His older sister, Cicely Von Eden, precedes him in death.

Born at a time when empire was at its height and growing up when the pus of racism was seeping out from the sores of capital, Jan heralded and helped to shape the cultural revolution against colonialism and racism in poetry, painting, polemic and play. A wandering minstrel uprooted and cast abroad by the imperial imperative, he rooted himself wherever he was in the struggles of the people around him. And he was in many places, wearing many faces, but always in the same cause: freedom for the oppressed and downtrodden-writing, teaching, broadcasting, engaging with mighty men and women. A renaissance man in the most deathly of times. A black renaissance man in the whitest of times. A griot tracing us back to the ghosts in our blood. And, a presence, a persona - tall, elegant, majestic - to go with it all. "In the course of one revolving moon/ he was soldier, servant, statesman, and Maroon (Pace, Dryden)."