Selwyn Cudjoe

Selwyn Cudjoe (born 1 December 1943) is a Trinidadian academic, scholar, historian, essayist and editor who is Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. He was also the Margaret E. Deffenbaugh and LeRoy T. Carlson Professor in Comparative Literature and the Marion Butler McClean Professor in the History of Ideas at Wellesley. Cudjoe's particular expertise is Caribbean literature and Caribbean intellectual history, and he teaches courses on the African-American literary tradition, African literature, black women writers, and Caribbean literature.

Cudjoe attended Tacarigua EC School, before migrating to the US in 1964, at the age of 21. He continued his studies at Fordham University, where he received a B.A. in English (1969) and an M.A. in American Literature (1972), attended Columbia University (1971–72), and subsequently earned a Ph.D. in American Literature from Cornell University (1976). The Role of Resistance in Caribbean Literature (2010), and Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century (2002). Cudjoe's 2018 book, The Slavemaster of Trinidad: William Hardin Burnley and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, is described by Henry Louis Gates Jr. as a "beautifully written and meticulously researched account of Burnley's life" that "unfolds the story of a planter who was born in America, educated in England, and made his fortune in the Caribbean. Measured in tone, this book not only exposes Burnley's public and private racism, but also places his life in context of the greater historical currents of the first half of the 19th century Atlantic world. Cudjoe has written a volume essential to a full understanding of the history of Trinidad." According to Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley, "Cudjoe's new book should be used as a teaching tool in all schools across the country." The Slavemaster of Trinidad was announced on the 2019 longlist for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

Cudjoe has edited a number of titles, including Caribbean Women Writers, an anthology of essays collected from the first international conference on Caribbean women writers, which he organised at Wellesley College in 1988, and, most recently, Narratives of Amerindians in Trinidad and Tobago; or, Becoming Trinbagonian (2016), "a fascinating compendium of key documents on the narration of the Amerindian presence in Trinidad".

Cudjoe writes a weekly column in the TnT Mirror, and his work has appeared in many other publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Amsterdam News, Trinidad and Tobago Review, Callaloo, New Left Review, Harvard Educational Review, Essence, Trinidad Guardian and Trinidad Express.

He has also written several documentaries, and Caribbean Women Writers (1994), and hosted programmes for Trinidad and Tobago Television. The Role of Resistance in Caribbean Literature, Nabu Press, 2010, ; HardPress Publishing, 2013, Caribbean Visionary: A. R. F. Webber and the Making of the Guyanese Nation, University Press of Mississippi, 2011, Preserving the Tacarigua Savannah: Respecting Our Heritage, 2013 The Slavemaster of Trinidad: William Hardin Burnley and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, University of Massachusetts Press, 2018,

Edited books Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference, Calaloux Publications/University of Massachusetts Press, 1991, Eric E. Williams Speaks: Essays on Colonialism and Independence, University of Massachusetts Press, 1993, (With William E. Cain) C.L.R. James: His Intellectual Legacies, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, Narratives of Amerindians in Trinidad and Tobago; or, Becoming Trinbagonian, 2016.