Phyllis Shand Allfrey

Phyllis Byam Shand Allfrey (24 October 1908 – 4 February 1986) was a writer, socialist activist, newspaper editor and politician who lived most of her life on the Caribbean island of Dominica.

• My poems are the best part of me.
  • quoted in Writing Lives: conversations between women writers (1988)

• Journalism is a different experience to writing for me. It's not romantic enough for me.
  • quoted in Writing Lives: conversations between women writers (1988)

• Now why, you may ask, does this Anglo-Saxon looking little woman represent three and three-quarter million island peoples who are mainly coloured persons of African and mixed descent. I will tell you. My friends, I was elected by a large majority of coloured people this year, and I represent them in the West Indian House of Representatives, our Parliament. I regard, therefore, that election and my ministerial appointment as a triumph of tolerance over skin-deep differences, and even over historical prejudices. May I add that it is a triumph of tolerance over creed as well as race.
  • from a speech to a UNESCO conference, quoted in Writing Lives: conversations between women writers (1988)

• They may strip us Federal Ministers and Members of honourable dues and even tie me to the stake in rags, but no one can deprive me of the signal and irrevocable honour of having been the first woman Minister in the Federal Government of the West Indies. Let the rains fall on dry lands and holy feathers drop from the sky — the traces of our passage will not be obliterated.
  • from her last speech to the West Indian Federation, quoted in Writing Lives: conversations between women writers (1988)

collection of short stories

• "When are you going to put me into a story, Philip?" (beginning of "It Falls Into Place")

• They are walking in the flower garden, and what are they singing? Something rather merry and mocking; the veering breeze blows up a few words now and then to the ears of a lady behind green bathroom blinds. (beginning of "O Stay and Hear")

• Now that she was sitting in Central Park, wrapped in furs, looking very beautiful, as always...now that she watched with reminiscent eyes the antics of her baby girl in oozing March snow...now that her car was due to call for them in half-an-hour...she brooded, almost with complacence, on the memory of that other park. (beginning of "Parks")

• Her poetry is full-blown, lush, often touched with a melancholy for home.
  • Polly Pattullo, article in Writing Lives: conversations between women writers (1988)

• Her delicate touch, discerning eye and a heart wise to the human condition animate these stories. Falls Into Place will confirm Allfrey's major contribution to the development of West Indian literature...
  • Olive Senior, used as blurb for It Falls Into Place

• Goodreads page
• Caribbean Literary Heritage page