Ian McDonald (Guyanese writer)

Ian McDonald (born 18 April 1933) is a Caribbean-born writer who describes himself as "Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction." His ancestry on his father's side is Antiguan and Kittitian, and Trinidadian on his mother’s side. His only novel The Humming-Bird Tree, first published in 1969, is considered a classic of Caribbean literature.

Ian McDonald was born on 18 April 1933, in St Augustine, Trinidad, where his mother, Thelma McDonald (née Seheult), and her parents were born and where his father, John Archie McDonald (who was born in St. Kitts and whose parents were born in Antigua), was Agricultural Director of Gordon Grant Limited. His uncle was Air Marshall Sir Arthur McDonald of Royal Air Force. He has four sisters – Heather Murray, Gillian Howie, Robin McDonald and Monica Purkis – and one brother, Archie McDonald.

He received his secondary education at Queen’s Royal College (1942–51) in Port of Spain, where he obtained distinctions in History and English in the Higher School Certificate. He attended Clare College, Cambridge University (1951–55), where he obtained a BA Honours Degree in History and later received his MA. He was elected President of the Cambridge University West Indian Society.

In 1955 he went to the then British Guiana with the Booker Group of Companies. He has lived and worked in Guyana ever since.

He spent a long career in the sugar industry. His first job was Secretary of the Bookers BG Group Committee. He then became Company Secretary of Bookers Sugar Estates, where he rose to be Administrative Director. When Bookers was nationalised in 1976 he remained with the Guyana Sugar Corporation where he held the post of Director of Marketing and Administration from 1976 to 1999 when he retired from GuySuCo. His knowledge of regional and international sugar marketing in particular was built up over 52 years and in his field he has represented Guyana and CARICOM on innumerable occasions at international conferences and forums. At the regional level he held the post of Chairman of Marketing of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean from 1990 to 1999. In November 1995 he delivered an address and presented a paper on "The Sugar Industries of the English-Speaking Caribbean" to the International Sugar Organisation in London.

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