Dates

• Existence: Born 1938

Biography

Bernth Lindfors was born in Sweden 1938. He is a retired African literature and performance academic, researcher and author.

A renowned academic within his field, Lindfors trained at Oberlin College for his BA in English before continuing further study at Harvard, Northwestern University and University of California. Teaching experience in English and History at Kisii School in Kisii Kenya and later at the University of Texas at Austin led him into his role as Professor of English and American literature, a post Lindfors held for twenty- three years.

A prolific researcher and editor, Lindfors was heavily active within the academic publishing field, Lindfors alongside other academics founded the African Literature Association (ALA). Additionally, Lindfors founded the journal Research in African Literatures (RAL) in 1970, a primary journal dedicated to research on the written and oral literatures of Africa.

Lindfors as an Anglophone African Literature specialist, has published a range of academic work. From detailed studies on Nigerian writers Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe to more encompassing work on Black African Literature in English (1995) and Early Black South African Literature (2011). Lindfors contribution to South African theatre, film, media and performance led to an increasing cultural influence within his later work and publications.

Following retirement, Lindfors contribution to the academic field combines his biographical background with Early Black contributions to entertainment in Europe. Lindfors’, Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 1833-1852 (2011) succeeded in winning the 2012 Errol Hill Award for ‘outstanding scholarship in African American Theater’. Further publications followed with, ‘Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 1855-1867’ (2015) and ‘Early Black Entertainments Abroad: From the Hotten to Venus to Africa’s First Olympians’ (2014). Such contributions to the vernacular have allowed for a wealth of archival material and academic commentary into the intercontinental and intersectional relationship of the entertainment sector between American and the UK.

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