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Jean D’Costa: foundational author of Jamaican children’s literature

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Image of Jean D'Costa and cover to her book Voice in the Wind

Jean D’Costa is a scholar of linguistics and literature who played a key role in bringing the study of creole language to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and literature written in Jamaican creole into the Jamaican school system. Her YA novel Sprat Morrison (1972) was the first Jamaican children’s novel introduced into the Jamaican school curriculum which occurred in 1972. Her work continues to be part of the regional Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) curriculum. In addition to Sprat Morrison, she wrote two other young adult novels, Escape to Last Man’s Peak (1976) and Voice in the Wind (1978). She also wrote books for younger children, seven to ten years: Caesar and the Three Robbers (1996), Duppy Tales (1997), and Jenny and the General (2006). With Velma Pollard, she co-edited Over Our Way: A Collection of Caribbean Short Stories for Young Readers (1980). A testament to the resilience and impact of her children’s fiction, which for generations was the first time Caribbean children saw/heard their voices in print, is the upcoming adaptation of Escape to Last Man Peak (1975) that will be directed by Nile Saulter and produced by Tanya Batson-Savage and Analisa Chapman of Have a Bawl Productions. For her work in the fields of children’s literature and linguistics, she was awarded the Children’s Writers Award from the Jamaican Reading Association in 1976, the Gertrude Flesh Bristol Award by Hamilton College in 1984, and the Jamaica Silver Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica in 1994.   

D’Costa is also a prominent scholar of linguistics. The first West Indian faculty in the English Department at the University of the West Indies where she taught from 1962 -1977, she developed curricular innovations that challenged British colonial models of education, such as her course on Creole language studies (1964-1965). She subsequently was professor of English at Hamilton College from 1980 to 1998. Her publications in linguistics include co-edited collections Caribbean Literary Discourse: Voice and Cultural Identity in the Anglophone Caribbean (2014) with Barbara Lalla and Velma Pollard, Language in Exile: Three Hundred Years of Jamaican Creole (2009) and Voices in Exile: Jamaican Texts of the 18th and 19th Centuries (2009) with collaborator Barbara Lalla. 

Please join us for a symposium that features three authors of Children’s Literature: Jean D’Costa, Olive Senior, and Nikkolas Smith, and highlights African American and Caribbean authors. It combines a celebration of the foundational author of Jamaican children’s literature, Jean D’Costa, with a presentation by artist, activist, and author Nikkolas Smith. 

Flyer for event "Revolutionary Power of Storytelling: Children's Literature" featuring images of participants

The Revolutionary Power of Storytelling: Children’s Literature 

Friday, November 7, 2025

9am – 5pm

Room 100, First Floor, Smathers Library and Zoom

Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/revolutionary-power-of-storytelling-childrens-literature-tickets-1746950097769?aff=oddtdtcreator  

Selected books in LACC: 

Books available at UF Special & Area Studies Collections Baldwin Library by request in the Grand Reading Room (email special@uflib.ufl.edu):  

eBooks (sign in with your Gatorlink credentials to access): 

Browse the library catalog to find additional resources.