Compiled by Al Creighton, Vanda Radzik, Marina Taitt and Jocelyn Dow
Michael Gilkes (1933 – 2020) was a prominent Caribbean academic, literary critic, playwright, director, poet and filmmaker. He was among the first order of Guyanese dramatists, a prize-winning poet, who made significant contributions to Guyanese literature, to the arts in the Caribbean, and earned a notable place in university circles in the West Indies, Guyana and the UK.
Michael Arthur Gilkes was born on November 5th, 1933 in Georgetown in then British Guiana. He attended secondary school at the Queen’s College but he did not think much of his academic achievements there, saying that English and Gardening were his two favourite subjects. He remembered his childhood as one of constant moving about in the city – moving a dozen times over 15 years of his boyhood life. He said that his “placelessness” was mainly a genetic trait: “I have inherited an Amerindian-based, Caribbean restlessness from my father and grandfather, both of whom were explorers in their own way, always seeking new territory”. The most constant place and his cultural cradle was the Taitt’s residence – Woodbine House on Murray Street – (now Cara Lodge). He was a nephew of Dorothy Taitt, cousin of Clairmonte Taitt and part of the illustrious Taitt family of Guyana. The first record of his work in Theatre, which spanned more than 50 years, was in a school production when he was 12 years old. He returned to the stage as a young man when he trod the boards in the role of Hamlet at the Theatre Guild Playhouse.