When as a youth in Trinidad Ralph de Boissière was discouraged by his family from ambitions to be a concert pianist, he turned to writing fiction, and was soon part of the group of young writers who, in the 1930s, produced Trinidad’s first literary magazine,
The Beacon. The short stories that de Boissière produced for this magazine have largely been lost and it was not until he migrated to Australia in 1948 that he completed his first novel. Nearly six decades on, his œuvre is known for its compassionate insight into the lives of the oppressed and its grasp of the political complexities of colonialism, and at the time of writing it stands at five novels, a one-act play and an autobiography.
Ralph Anthony Charles de Boissière was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, on 6 October 1907. His
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Citation: Greet de Boissière, Annie. "Ralph De Boissière". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1176, accessed 23 November 2024.]
