Bio sketch of e. r. braithwaite

1. Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite, publishing
as E. R. Braithwaite, was a Guyanese-born British-
American novelist, writer, teacher, and diplomat,
best known for his stories of social conditions
and racial discrimination against black people. He
was the author of the 1959 novel To Sir, With Love,
which was made into a 1967 British drama film of
the same title, starring Sidney Poitier and Lulu.
Braithwaite was born in Georgetown, Guyana, on
June 27, 1912. He had a privileged beginning in life;
both of his parents went to Oxford University and he described
growing up with education, achievement, and parental pride
surrounding him. His father was a gold and diamond miner and his
mother was a homemaker. He attended Queen's College, Guyana, a
high school, and then City College of New York (1940). During World
War II, he joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot – he would later
describe this experience as one where he had felt no discrimination
based on his skin color or ethnicity. He went on to attend
the University of Cambridge (1949), from which he earned a
bachelor's degree and a doctorate in physics.
After the war, despite his extensive training, Braithwaite could not
find work in his field and, disillusioned, reluctantly took up a job as a

2. schoolteacher in the East End of London. The book To Sir, With
Love (1959) was based on his experiences there. It won an Anisfield-
Wolf Book Award. To Sir with Love was adapted into a film version,
starring Sidney Poitier. Although the film was a box-office success,
critical opinion and Braithwaite himself considered it too sentimental
and he also objected to his mixed-race romance being given lower
prominence.
While writing his book about the school, Braithwaite turned to social
work and it became his job to find foster homes for non-white
children for the London County Council. His experiences resulted
in Paid Servant: a Report about Welfare Work in London published in
the UK in 1962. Braithwaite's numerous writings primarily deal with
the difficulties of being an educated black man, a black social worker,
a black teacher, and simply a human being who find them self in a set
of inhumane circumstances.
In 1973, the South African ban on Braithwaite's books was lifted and
he reluctantly applied to visit the country. He was granted a visa and
the status "honorary white" which gave him significantly more
privileges than the indigenous black population, but less than the
whites. He recorded the experiences and horror he witnessed during
the six weeks he spent in South Africa in his book Honorary
White (London: The Bodley Head, 1975).
Braithwaite continued to write novels and short stories throughout
his long international career as an educational consultant and
lecturer for UNESCO, the first permanent Guyana representative to
the United Nations (1967–69), and later Guyana's ambassador
to Venezuela. He taught English studies at New York University and
in 2002, was a writer-in-residence at Howard University, Washington,
D.C.. He associated himself with Manchester Community College
(Connecticut), during the 2005–06 academic year as a visiting
professor. Therein he slso served as the aforementioned educational

3. institution's commencement speaker for that year and received an
honorary degree.
He turned 100 in 2012 and on a visit to Guyana in his capacity as the
patron of the Inter-Guiana Cultural festival he was conferred on
August 23 that year with a national award, the Cacique Crown of
Honour, by then-President Donald Ramotar. Braithwaite lived
in Washington, D.C..
Brathwaite died at the Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical
Center in Rockville, Maryland, on December 12, 2016, at the age of
104.
Selected bibliographies of E. R. Braithwaite are as follows:
1) To Sir, With Love (1959)
2) Paid Servant (1962)
3) A Kind of Homecoming (1962)
4) Choice of Straws (1965)
5) Reluctant Neighbors (1972)

4. 6) Honorary White (1975)