The University of the West Indies (UWI) is tremendously saddened by the passing of Jamaica’s national treasure and cultural icon, the Hon. Louise Bennett Coverly, affectionately known as “Miss Lou’ on whom it conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in 1982 in recognition of this ‘poet, public servant and patriot’.

In a citation read at the time, the University acknowledged that ‘for over forty years, she had been at the centre of the soul of Jamaica’s cultural development, involving a wide range of public policies and programmes, of private initiatives and efforts that would seek to give to the people of Jamaica confidence in self and society and specifically in what may well be one of the most original and significant phenomena to have emerged from the collective consciousness and forged out of the creative imagination of her people over a period of four centuries through that complex process of creolisation -- the indigenous Creole language of Jamaica.

In using the language of the Jamaican folk to craft not only a theatre ‘persona’ but an amplitudinous body of literary work and a repertoire of dramatic renditions on stage, in films, on radio and on television, Louise Bennett Coverly is one of the Caribbean region’s genuine “originals”. For that reason, her work remains unique.

She has been a source of inspiration for the many poets who have acknowledged their debt to her, a source of information for countless scholars and investigators into Jamaican folklore in general and Creole languages in particular, and a source of energy for artistic creativity in the fields of music, dance and theatre.

The University celebrates the life of this outstanding Caribbean woman and is grateful for the work which she has done in contributing to the expansion of knowledge that now informs a modern Jamaican nation and a dynamic Caribbean society on the road to self-definition and cultural purpose.

The UWI extends sincere condolences to her family, friends and colleagues. Walk Good, Miss Lou.
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