born Jan. 4, 1901, Tunapuna, Trin.
died May 31, 1989, London, Eng.
Trinidadian writer and political activist.
As a young man he moved to Britain, where his first work, The Life of Captain Cipriani , was published in 1929. His study of Toussaint-Louverture , The Black Jacobins (1938), was a seminal work. During James's first stay in the U.S. (193853), he became friends with Paul Robeson . Eventually deported to Britain because of his Marxism and labour activism, James wrote on cricket for The Guardian . His Beyond the Boundary (1963) mixes autobiography with commentary on politics and sports. He returned to the U.S. in 1970 but eventually settled permanently in Britain.