Routes of English: The Hurricane Speaks (Series 4, Programme 3)
Melvyn Bragg Audio Book

Here we take up the story of Caribbean English where the Brixton Routes left off.

For the poet Edward Kamau Braithwaite the legacy of the English language is something from which he, in his tropical landscape, must break free because, as he wrote, ‘the hurricane does not roar in pentameters’.

Melvyn Bragg heads off to the Caribbean where he meets a number of linguists who are mapping out an ambitious plan to make Creole the official language across the whole of the English-speaking Caribbean. But how would this work in practice? He travels across the region ending up in St Lucia where he discusses the use of Creole and standard English with Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, one of the most skilled exponents of the English language today.