Claude McKay, from Harlem to Marseille
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The Jamaican poet and novelist Claude McKay was a leading light of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. He was a restless figure who travelled widely and as the recent documentary Claude McKay: from Harlem to Marseille shows, he struggled to live by his pen. McKay’s defiant poem, ‘If We Must Die’, became a rallying cry for activists and remains so till today. At the British Film Institute (BFI) in London, the actor and director Burt Caesar was joined by the poets Hannah Lowe and Jason Allen-Paisant along with WritersMosaic‘s director, Colin Grant, to discuss the documentary and the life and work of McKay.
Still from Claude McKay:from Harlem to Marseille courtesy of BFI