H. Nigel Thomas: Biographical Note

I was born on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, now part of the nation calledSaint Vincent and the Grenadines, in a place called Dickson's Village, a village actually named for one of my colonial ancestors who had possessed those lands. In fact, my maternal grandfather, in whose household I lived from age three, was John Dickson, greatgrandson of that colonial ancestor. By the time I came along all that was in the past, and my relatives were among the village poor.

I am the third of four children-all boys-resulting from my parents' marriage. At an early age I bonded with my maternal grandmother, Hester Roban Dickson. She was a warm, affectionate woman, in spite of her strict, no-nonsense ways. My grandfather (her husband) was an avid reader. He'd had several careers: shopkeeper, schoolteacher, carpenter, mine manager in Venezuela, etc. He taught me to read before I went to school, and after that he challenged me to perform beyond the school curriculum; best of all, Grandpa was full of stories about his travels. My novel Behind the Face of Winter is dedicated to their memory.
In Saint Vincent, I worked briefly as an elementary teacher, then as a high school teacher and finally as a civil servant. I arrived in Montreal in 1968, and after training as a registered nursing assistant, I worked part-time while attending university. In 1976, after completing a BA, MA and a diploma in education, I began a twelve-year career teaching English and later French at the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal, a career I periodically interrupted to pursue doctoral studies. Since 1988, I have been a professor of U.S. literature at Université Laval in Quebec City.

My arrival in Montreal (at age 21) in an alien environment enabled me to further explore a compulsion I had to probe my identity and to resist those who sought to restrict me. Needless to say, these issues, which are ongoing, have influenced my writing. But above all, it's the mystery of the human psyche that intrigues me-this and the awareness that survival is the fundamental instinct driving human behaviour, even when such behaviour seems inimical to survival. Writing imaginatively is one way for me to explore such issues.
By the way, Isabella Island, the Caribbean setting of my published fiction, is an invented island. Obviously it's influenced in large part by my growing up in St. Vincent. But I have traveled to many other Caribbean islands. The reality dramatized on Isabella is more of a Pan-Caribbean reality. For example, Expatriates Academy is a composite of several Caribbean schools. Also, the information in my fiction is not autobiographical.

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