Anne Walmsley (born 1931)[1] is a British-born editor, scholar, critic and author, notable as a specialist in Caribbean art and literature, whose career spans five decades.
Her pioneering school anthology, The Sun's Eye: West Indian Writing for Young Readers (1968), drew on her use of local literary material while teaching in Jamaica.
[3] On returning to London, she was employed for a while with the BBC Schools television service, before joining the publisher Longman in 1967 as their first editor for the Caribbean, focused on providing local educational material, in which role she travelled throughout the region for nine years.
[7][8] Caribbean writers published at Longman's on Walmsley's watch include Roy Heath (whose first novel, A Man Come Home, she took on in 1974),[9] George Lamming, Samuel Selvon and Ismith Khan.
[19] In 2016–17, she donated her collection of documents on Caribbean art – including exhibition catalogues, photographs, interviews and correspondence with artists, and other papers – to the Alma Jordan Library at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.
"[20] At the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in 2018 Walmsley was named as the recipient of the Henry Swanzy Award in recognition of her distinguished service to Caribbean letters.