Paule Burke Marshall (born 1929) was an American author whose works reflected her Bajan background and twin themes of the need to confront the past and the need to change the present.

Paule Marshall was born April 9, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York, to Samuel and Ada Burke, who had immigrated separately from Barbados after World War I. At 18 her mother paid her passage with money inherited from an older brother. This money, called "Panama money," was the legacy of a man who had died, like thousands of other West Indian migrant laborers, digging the Panama Canal.

Marshall grew up in a bicultural environment rich with the language and folklore of Barbados. Her parents admired Franklin Roosevelt but were far more enthusiastic about Marcus Garvey. Marshall did not visit Barbados until she was nine years old, but island culture was made real to her by the lively conversations of her mother's...