Ivan Van Sertima
(1935 – 2009)
‘For this I came to pull a star down from the darkness…that men, looking back, through the window of my timemay be hued by the glorious pattern of my days’
-From Van Sertima’s poem, ‘For this I came’ VAN Sertima was always in search of a suitable way to express himself. Thoughts were crowding his mind; thoughts too disturbing to let go of without reaching for answers. But the answers served only to bring on more questions; questions goading him on….

At first, he tried his hands at poetry, and he was numbered among the best at that time.

According to Ian McDonald in an article, ‘Guyanese Poetry after Independence’, published in The Guyana Annual 1999: “From the 1940s onwards, the themes and impulses grow in number, and are far more complex and interesting. The language to express these multiplying impulses also grows more complex, more agonised, more crude, more suspicious of tradition and sentiment, more self-conscious. These new poets – Arthur Seymour, Martin Carter, Wilson Harris, Wordsworth McAndrew, Ivan Van Sertima, Milton Williams – are now speaking in a new voice.”

Van Sertima was one of the new voices exploring the theme of revolt – revolt against the European, exploring the theme of identity, and self-respect. In his first and only volume of poetry, ‘River and the Wall’, published locally in 1958, he said: “While the world slept/I came down to the sea/searching for a voice/hurling the harpoons of my thought/deep into the seas of time and space.”

It is said that poetry is the purest form of expression, and this may be responsible for his published poetry gaining an imprint on the imagination of a British readership. So his poetry made a way for him as he migrated to England. Too soon, and sadly, the academic was forced by the nature of his work to turn from poetry for expression to scholarship. Here he succeeded in gaining world attention with his magnum opus, ‘They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America’, 1977, wherein he argued that explorers from the great civilisations of ancient Egypt, who were black, had travelled to the Western Hemisphere, exerting more influence on pre-Columbian cultures than any other possible explorers.

Van Sertima was also successful in other genres of writing. An unpublished novel, ‘Blackhouse’, which he was working on, was converted into a film, ‘The Black Prince’. Van Sertima had a certain touch, turning base items to precious metal. His short stories appeared in regional periodicals.

Of course, he was a successful writer because he knew how to say what he had to say, something that was birthed through his ‘Caribbean Writers: Critical Essays, 1968’. In these essays, Van Sertima was dismissive of Naipaul, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Van Sertima was harsh on Mittelholzer, who became the best known Guyanese novelist. The novels of Jan Carew and Wilson Harris, however, found favour in his estimation.

Although described as a mild-mannered man, Van Sertima was never known to pull his punches, especially if he found a loophole. And he found many a loophole in the history of Africans written by the European. Hence, he went about studiously to set the record straight with the publication of ‘They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America’, 1977, which he authored; and the other publications he edited, including ‘The African Presence in Early Europe’, 1985; ‘The African Presence in Early Asia’, 1985; and ‘Journal of African Civilizations’ which he started.

These publications started an avalanche of scholarship that would help “repair that damage.” Van Sertima knew what it takes and conscientiously went about it because “many people feel a certain kind of happiness when they read my book. A certain kind of shadow lifts. The psyche of blacks is raised. No man who believes his history began with slavery can be a healthy man. If you lift that shadow, you help repair that damage.”

Educator, researcher, critic, writer, poet, Ivan Van Sertima was born on January 26, 1935 in Kitty Village, British Guiana. He completed his early schooling in Guyana and entered the world of work as a press and broadcasting officer in the then Government Information Office from 1956 until 1959.

For higher education, he attended the London School of Oriental and African Studies, London, England, where he studied African languages and literature, gaining a BA with honours in 1969. During this time, he also he learnt to speak Swahili and Hungarian fluently. A linguist he was, yes! In his poem, ‘Samadhi’, published a decade earlier, he showed a good command of Hindi words and phrases.

At Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, he gained an MA in 1977. At Rutgers, he moved from student to instructor, steadily rising in the ranks of educator, from assistant professor, to associate professor, to professor.

Literature was in his blood; in literature he learned a lot, and through literature, he gave back to the world what he learnt after distilling his thoughts.

Literature was in his blood: From his early writings in poetry, to his essays on Caribbean literature, to broadcasting on literature for the BBC, to becoming a nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ivan Van Sertima went to another level of experience on May 25, 2009.

For responses to this author, telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com

What’s happening:
• Call for papers on ‘Re-reading Edgar Mittelholzer’

• Look out for the production commencement date of the next issue of The Guyana Annual