Jan Rynveld Carew is a novelist, playwright, poet and educator.

Born in 1925 at Agricola, a village in Guyana also called Rome, he was educated at the Berbice High School. At age 17, he left Guyana for the United States where he studied at Howard University and Western Reserve University (1944-8). He also went to Charles University in Prague (1948-50) and the Sorbonne in Paris. He has taught at London University, Princeton, Rutgers, Illinois Wesleyan, Hampshire College, Northwestern and Lincoln Universities. 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Howard University is a historically black university in Washington, D.C.. Notable alumni include Toni Morrison, Thurgood Marshall, Ossie Davis, Debbie Allen, and Phylicia Rashad. ... Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio. ... The Charles University of Prague (also simply University of Prague; Czech: Univerzita Karlova; Latin: Universitas Carolina) is the oldest and most prestigious Czech university and among the oldest universities in Europe, being founded in 1340s (for the exact year, see below). ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The Sorbonne today, from the same point of view The Sorbonne is frequently used in ordinary parlance as synonymous with the faculty of theology of Paris or the University of Paris in its entirety. ...

Jan Carew has lived in Holland, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Ghana, Canada and the United States. In England, he acted with Sir Laurence Olivier and edited the Kensington Post.

Some of the noted figures he has had relations with are W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Graham DuBois, Maurice Bishop, Cheikh Anta Diop, Edward Scobie, John Henrik Clarke, Tsegaye Medhin Gabre, Sterling D. Plumpp and Ivan Van Sertima.

He is the author of Grenada: Black Midas, The Wild Coast, The Hour Will Strike Again, Fulcrums of Change, Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England and the Caribbean. His essays include "Estevanico: The African Explorer," "Rape of Paradise: Columbus and the Origin of Racism in the Americas," and "Moorish Culture-Bringers: Bearers of Englightment."