Ian Randle

Ian Randle (born 7 July 1949) is a Jamaican publisher. He is the founder of an eponymous independent publishing company whose main focus is on English-language readers. He has won awards including the Prince Claus Award in 2012 and the 2019 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for distinguished service to Caribbean letters.

Life Randle was born in Green Island, Hanover Parish on Jamaica in 1949, the eldest of his parents' three boys and two girls. He studied for a Special Honours degree in history at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, and later for an MSc degree in international politics at the University of Southampton, UK, on a Commonwealth scholarship. After his academic study, he worked many years for British publishers until he set up his own firm, Ian Randle Publishers (IRP), in 1990. This start made him the first English-language publisher of scholarly books in the Caribbean, publishing books on and about the region since 1991. Later, his firm became a model for particularly the African book scene.

Ian Randle Publishers At first, Randle focused on history and the social sciences, which allowed young academics to publish their findings locally. As a result, the region became less dependent on writers from the United Kingdom, the colonizer of Jamaica until 1962. Earlier that year, the Caribbean magazine Tallawah included him on the list of most influential Jamaicans. In 2013, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus in Trinidad, for his contribution to Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. In the same year, he received the Trailblazers Award from the Book Industry Association of Jamaica.

In March 2019, Randle was announced as the recipient of the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award, which was presented on 5 May 2019 at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, Trinidad.