E. R. Braithwaite

E. R. Braithwaite
E. R. Braithwaite photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1962
Born	Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite June 27, 1912 Georgetown, British Guyana
Died	December 12, 2016(2016-12-12) (aged 104) Rockville, Maryland, United States
Occupation	Novelist, writer, diplomat, teacher
Genre	Fiction, literature

Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite (June 27, 1912 – December 12, 2016), 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 colour 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 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. He is quoted as saying in a 2007 BBC Radio 4 programme entitled To Sir With Love Revisited, written and presented by Burt Caesar, exploring the story behind the book: "I detest the movie from the bottom of my heart."