Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah

BARBARA MAKEDA BLAKE HANNAH is a Jamaican who has been writing all her life. She is the author of four books and numerous articles on Jamaican culture, entertainment and humanist philosophy. She is also a film maker, directing 8 films including the noted documentary 'Race, Rhetoric, Rastafari' for CHANNEL 4 UK in 1983.

After moving to London in 1964, Barbara gained public attention in 1968 as the first Black journalist on British TV (THAMES, ATV, BBC). Returning to Jamaica in 1972 she began living according to the Rastafari faith and in 1981 she wrote the first book on the religion written by a practising member - RASTAFARI - THE NEW CREATION. It has been re-published in 7 editions and from its home in Jamaica, the book has travelled the world and been read by people of all nations.

Her novel 'JOSEPH - A RASTA REGGAE FABLE', was inspired by the life of her friend Bob Marley about the life and times of the Reggae Rasta Seventies. An extremely popular book, it was re-published by MacMillan Caribbean in 2011. A translation in Serbian was published in May 2022.

In 2010 Barbara's book 'GROWING OUT: BLACK HAIR AND BLACK PRIDE' was published in Jamaica, a memoir of her early years and the decade she spent living in England and becoming Britain's first Black television reporter/interviewer. A new edition of this book was published by Penguin UK in 2022, with an introduction by Booker Prize Winner Bernardine Evaristo.

Her book 'HOME - THE FIRST SCHOOL' published in 2008 shares her experiences as Jamaica's homeschooling pioneer, educating her son Makonnen from birth and inspiring a generation of Jamaican homeschooling mothers. A new updated edition HOME THE FIRST SCHOOL - HOW TO GROW A GENIUS CHILD was published in October 2021.

Her novel THE MOON HAS ITS SECRETS based on the life of National Heroine Nanny of the Maroons, was published in 2014

Given the Ethiopian Orthodox Church baptizmal name Makeda, the Ethiopian Crown Council awarded her a Gold Adowa Centenary Medal in 1998 for her services to the Ethiopian Royal family and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In 2018 the Governor General awarded Mrs. Blake-Hannah the Jamaican Order of Distinction for services in the field of culture and cultural history preservation. Other awards she has received include the 2010 Rastafari Youth Initiative Council (Jamaica) Empress Mennen Award, the Hampton Girls School 160 Anniversary Honour Award and the 2018 Marcus Garvey U.N.I.A. Lifetime Achievement Award.

She has lectured at the Universities of the West Indies (Jamaica & Guyana campuses), New York, Vienna - Austria, US Virgin Islands and Florida International University, and was a member of the Jamaican delegation to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, South Africa.

Barbara has also organized several film festivals in Jamaica since 1974, initiated an annual Jamaica Reggae Film Festival in 2008 screening films that include or document Jamaica's reggae music culture, and been a guest of film festivals in the USA, Cuba, Iraq and Leipzig, East and West Germany.

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