Frank E. M. Hercules
Frank E. M. Hercules was a Trinidadian author born on February 12, 1917, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Raised in a relatively affluent family, he experienced the complexities of colonialism firsthand, particularly after his father's deportation due to his advocacy for black workers' rights. This early exposure to social strife influenced Hercules's worldview, leading him to pursue a literary career after abandoning his law studies in London. Relocating to Harlem, New York City, he became an influential voice within a multicultural society, engaging with issues of race and identity. His first novel, *Where the Hummingbird Flies*, published in 1961, explored themes of racial and ethnic conflicts through characters often engaged in mixed relationships. Over his career, Hercules received recognition for his contributions to literature, including fellowships and academic appointments. He became a U.S. citizen in 1959 but resisted labels, challenging perceptions of race in his work. Hercules passed away on May 6, 1996, leaving behind a legacy that continues to resonate in discussions of race and cultural identity.
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Subject Terms
Frank E. M. Hercules
Writer
- Born: February 12, 1917
- Birthplace: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
- Died: May 6, 1996
- Place of death: Roosevelt Island, New York, New York
Biography
Frank E. M. Hercules was born in Port-of-Spain in the British Caribbean island colony of Trinidad on February 12, 1917. His mother, Millicent Dottin Hercules, was an educator and school administrator and his father, Felix Eugene Michael Hercules, was a Venezuelan-born teacher and government employee. Hercules was raised in a relatively stable, affluent environment, the only unsettling element at first being his father’s support of colonialism. The oppressiveness of the colonial system he favored led his father to be deported to the United States after he publicly spoke on behalf of the rights of black workers in England during World War I. Hercules’s father was blamed for incendiary statements that led to rioting in Jamaica.
Hercules and his mother remained in Trinidad, the youngster unsure of why his father was gone, the mother pacing and weeping. From the boy’s perspective, colonialism caused strife for wives and husbands, destroying families. Still, Hercules reaped the benefits of the system, receiving a fine education and, in 1928, going to London to study law at the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple of the Inns of the Court. He did not complete his studies because he saw himself becoming one of two things: a cultured snob or a militant revolutionary. To pursue a possible literary career, he relocated to New York City’s Harlem, leaving his wife and unborn child behind.
Once settled in the city, he spent much of his free time at the National African Memorial Bookstore, a place known informally as the Crossroads of Black America, where artists, writers, and activists met. He quickly established himself as a voice of those less favored in a multicultural society. He knew the bigotry of Trinidad and became very familiar with the racism of the United States, which he found far more virulent. Because he felt superior to most whites, he was vaguely amused when a Harlem hotel turned him away for his blackness and when, on occasion, he would be seated near the rear of restaurants, even if accompanied by white friends. Eventually, he avoided situations which could lead him to be rejected by inferiors. In 1946, he married his second wife, Deltora C. Howard, who bore him another son.
Hercules confused some potential publishers, who did not know how to classify him. In 1959, he had become an American citizen, but he did not fall under the African American author label, and he was not exactly Trinidadian. One publisher accused him of not sounding black, which earned the rejoinder “How is a Negro supposed to speak, except with a lot of pain, and sometimes humor?”
Hercules’s first novel, Where the Hummingbird Flies, was published in 1961 and earned him the Fletcher Pratt Memorial Fellowship in Prose at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont. This book, along with his other writings, concerned conflicts among races stirred up in an atmosphere of class, race, and ethnic division. His characters were often involved in mixed relationships or marriages.
Hercules was appointed a visiting scholar at Loyola University in New Orleans, was the writer-in-residence at Xavier University in New Orleans, and was named a Rockefeller Fellow at the Institute for Humanistic Studies. Upon his death on May 6, 1996, he left one completed manuscript and another in its final stages. Strangely, one of his writings predicted the rise of Jimmy Carter to the presidency, this at a time when Carter was little known.