It was published in French in 1981 and in the same year, was awarded the Clarence L. He is the author of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, which was published by Random House in 1977 and is presently in its twenty-ninth printing. He also compiled the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field work in Tanzania, East Africa, in 1967. He was honored as an historian of world repute by being asked to join UNESCO's International Commission for Rewriting the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind.Īs a linguist, published essays on the dialect of the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast. He was honored for his work in this field by being asked by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976-1980. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain and the United States.

He was a literary critic, a linguist, and an anthropologist who made a name in all three fields.Īs a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. During the decade of the 1960s he broadcast weekly from Britain to Africa and the Caribbean. From 1957-1959 he served as a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services. He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London University) and the Rutgers Graduate School and held degrees in African Studies and Anthropology. Ivan Van Sertima was born in Guyana, South America. As a literary critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He was a literary critic, a linguist, and an anthropologist who made a name in all three fields.

Van sertima they came before columbus