| Collection | Faustin Charles Collection |
| Description | The papers of Faustin Charles, storyteller and writer, includes manuscripts and typescripts of some of his novels, stories, plays, operettas and poetry (published and unpublished), mainly from the 1990s onwards. This also includes some audio recordings of the operettas.
Additionally, the collection contains correspondence, leaflets, newsletters and flyers relating to performances of his poetry and readings from his work as well as appearances in schools and libraries talking about Caribbean literature and history. Further correspondence covers his communication with contemporary poets and artists from the 1960s onwards, including those associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement, as well as correspondence about his publications, reprints, and extracts. There are also papers and meeting notes relating to committees and groups Faustin Charles attended.
The collection also contains press cuttings and reviews of his work, as well as books, newsletters, literary magazines and posters that feature his work from the 1960s onwards, and some additional personal items. |
| Admin history | Faustin was born in Trinidad in 1944, attending primary and secondary school there until he moved to Britain in 1962. In 1973 to 1977, Faustin worked for the Commonwealth Institute on the Talks to Schools programme, where he visited schools, storytelling and talking about Caribbean life and culture, and lecturing on Caribbean literature.
In 1977 Faustin began studying a degree in English with African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, graduating in 1980. After graduation, he taught Colonial and Caribbean History and Culture at Adult Educational Institutions in London for the Inner London Education Authority until 1988.
Faustin also worked with an international group of musicians and storytellers called “Common Lore” throughout 1985, and was writer-in-residence undertaking a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of Warwick in 1986. Other writer-in-residence appointments included a position at Wormwood Scrubs Mens Prison in 1988-1989, and Queen Mary’s Sixth Form College in Hampshire from 1990-1991. From 1989 Faustin has also worked as a freelance storyteller all over the UK, and in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
His publications include:
The Expatriate (Poems), Brookside Press: 1969
Crab Track (Poems), Brookside Press: 1973
Signposts of the Jumbie (Novel), Bogle-L’Overture Publications, London: 1981
Tales from the West Indies (Stories based on folk myths in the Caribbean), WH Allen, London: 1985
The Black Magic Man of Brixton (Novel), Karnak House, London: 1985
Days and Nights in the Magic Forest (Poems), Bogle-L’Overture Publications, London: 1986
Under the Storyteller’s Spell (Folktales from the Caribbean), edited by Faustin Charles, Viking/Penguin, London: 1989
The Kiskadee Queen (Nursery Rhymes from the Caribbean, Africa, Black America and India), Blackie, London: 1991
Uncle Charlie’s Crick Crack Tales (Folk Stories), Karia Press, London: 1994
A Caribbean Counting Book (Nursery Rhymes), Barefoot Books, London: 1996
Wilkie and the Bakoo (Story based on Guyanese myth), Longman, London: 1997
When Magic Raindrops Fall (a play), 1994.
Anancy Man (a children’s Operetta based on a popular Caribbean folk character called Anancy the trickster).. Produced by a Primary School in London in 1994.
The Selfish Crocodile (Children’s Book), Bloomsbury, London: 1998
Once upon an Animal (Poems), Bloomsbury, London: 1998
Teacher Alligator (Poems), Bloomsbury, London: 2000
Children of the Morning: new and selected poems (Poems), Peepal Tree: 2008.
The Selfish Crocodile Library, Bloomsbury, London: 2011.
The Selfish Crocodile Book of Sounds; The Selfish Crocodile Book of Words; The Selfish Crocodile Book of Numbers, Bloomsbury, London: 2012.
Jumbie Stole the Innocence, Karnak House, London: 2014
Sea Poem, Cane Arrow Press, Royston: 2014.
A Caribbean Vampire in London, GLOM Publications, London: 2015.
The Man who Loved Stephen King, Book Publishing World: 2019. |