Ismith Khan

Mohamed Ismith Khan (March 16, 1925 – April 24, 2002) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born American author and educator. His paternal grandfather, Kale Khan, left British India after participating in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and migrated to British Guiana. He later moved to Trinidad and Tobago, where he established a jewellery business. After surviving the Hosay massacre in 1884, Kale Khan settled in Port of Spain where he established what his grandson later described as "the largest and most famous jewellery shop in Port of Spain". He lived with his son Faiez and his family when Ismith was a child, and inspired one of the main characters in The Jumbie Bird.

While working at the Guardian, Khan was assigned to interview Mariam Ghose, In 1958, Khan became an American citizen.

While living in New York, Khan wrote his first two novels, The Jumbie Bird and The Obeah Man, and most of his short stories. In 1964 Khan met Vera Reichler and became romantically involved with her. They moved in together in 1966, and were married in 1969 after his divorce was finalised. In the fall of that year they moved from New York to Baltimore after Khan was admitted to the creative writing program at Johns Hopkins University. In 1970 Khan received an M.A. in creative writing and submitted The Crucifixion, which he had started writing before leaving New York, as his thesis.

Khan's work was overshadowed by his two more prominent Indo-Trinidadian contemporary novelists – V.S. Naipaul and Sam Selvon. Khan's relative obscurity may have been due to the fact that he was based in the United States while his contemporaries were based in London, which "functioned as the English Caribbean's literary capital" and provided a support network.

The Jumbie Bird

Khan's first novel, The Jumbie Bird, was published in 1961, on the eve of Trinidad and Tobago's independence from the British Empire. It tells the story of three generations of men – Kale Khan, the grandfather, a Pathan from India who migrated to Trinidad as a free immigrant (not an indentured labourer); his Trinidadian-born son, Rahim; and Rahim's son, Jamini.