Born in 1933 in St. Augustine, Trinidad, son of Archie and Thelma McDonald née Seheult. Educated at Queen's Royal College in Port of Spain and Cambridge University where he took an Honours Degree in History. Lived and worked since 1955 in Guyana where he became Director of Marketing and Administration in the Guyana Sugar Industry and CEO of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean. Played at Wimbledon in the 1950s and captained Cambridge and then Guyana at lawn tennis and subsequently the West Indies Davis Cup Team in the 1960s. Author of The Hummingbird Tree and 12 books of poetry and won the Guyana Prize of Literature in 1992, 2002, 2012 and 2023. Editorial Assistant to the Sridath Ramphal West Indian Commission in 1991/92. Member of the P.J. Patterson Committee on the Governance of West Indian Cricket in 2007/08. Chairman of the Stabroek News 2009-2021 and has written a weekly column for the newspaper for 40 years. Awarded Guyana Golden Arrow of Achievement 1986. Honorary Doctorate of Letters from UWI, St. Augustine in 1997. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1970. Married to Mary Callender with sons Jamie and Darren and a son Keith from a previous marriage. "Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, West Indian by conviction".
