Earl Lovelace, (born July 13, 1935, Toco, Trinidad), West Indian novelist, short-story writer, and playwright celebrated for his descriptive, dramatic fiction about West Indian culture. Using Trinidadian speech patterns and standard English, he probes the paradoxes often inherent in social change as well as the clash between rural and urban cultures. Lovelace was raised by his maternal grandparents on the island of Tobago. He attended private schools there and in Port of Spain, Trinidad. After living abroad for a short time, he returned to Trinidad in 1967 and worked as a journalist, novelist, and dramatist. He also taught English at the University of the West Indies at Saint Augustine and…