MISS Lou: Louise Bennett and Jamaican Culture is a new biography by professor Mervyn Morris. Distributed by Kingston’s Ian Randle Publishers, (IRP) it will be released this month.

Miss Lou covers Miss Lou’s work as a poet, performer, storyteller, singer, actress, writer, broadcaster and children’s television show host. That diverse career spanned 50 years.

According to a release from IRP, “The book is brief and affordable, and captures the life of a woman whose actions and life’s work instilled pride in Jamaicans in their language and culture.”

Bennett-Coverley is a standardbearer for modern Caribbean literature. She appeared in many pantomimes and wrote numerous poems and scripts. She also hosted radio and television programmes in Britain and at home, championing Jamaican culture.

She died in Toronto — where she lived for several years — in 2006 at age 88. Morris is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing and West Indian Literature at the University of the West Indies (Mona).