BELIZE CITY, Mon. Dec. 21, 2020– Belize’s foremost author of fiction and internationally acclaimed novelist, Zee Edgell passed away on Sunday, December 20, at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, following a battle with cancer. She was 80 years old.
Born on Cleghorn Street in Belize City, British Honduras, on October 21, 1940 as Zelma Inez Tucker, the daughter of the late Clive Tucker and Veronica Tucker (nee Walker), Zee, as she was affectionately known, attended Holy Redeemer Primary School and St. Catherine Academy (SCA) in Belize City. Starting at age 18, Zee worked as a trainee reporter at The Daily Gleaner in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1950s, before pursuing a diploma in journalism from Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) in 1965. She then took up a teaching post at SCA from 1966-68, during which time she became the founding editor of The Reporter newspaper in Belize City in 1967, and was married to American educator Alvin “Al” Edgell in 1968, a marriage that lasted 52 years until his passing. Mrs. Edgell returned to teaching briefly at SCA during 1980-81.
Together Zee and Alvin Edgell raised two children — journalist Holly Edgell, 51, and physician Randall Edgell, 45. Through Randall and his wife, Emily Shavers Edgell, the couple had three grandchildren — Isaac, Sophia and Simon.
Mrs. Edgell is also survived by her brother, Barry Tucker, and his partner, Leslie Dunlap; her sister Laura Tucker-Longsworth and brother-in-law Stanley Longsworth, Sr.; her sister Martha Tucker-Eiley and brother-in-law Glenford Eiley; and sisters Monica Tucker and Ava Tucker. Three of her brothers, Clive Tucker, Jr., Alexander “Zandy” Tucker and Lenton Tucker, are deceased.
With the publishing of her first novel in 1982, one year after Belize’s Independence, Zee Edgell soon gained international attention and recognition as a notable literary talent. According to one Wikipedia page, “Beka Lamb was the first novel to be published in the new nation and went on to claim the distinction of being Belize’s first novel to gain an international audience, winning Britain’s Fawcett Society Book Prize in 1982 (awarded annually to a work of fiction that contributes to an understanding of women’s position in society today).”
Zee followed with three more novels: In Times Like These (1991), The Festival of San Joaquin (1997), and Time and the River (2007); but Beka Lamb remains her most outstanding work, having been translated and published in German (1989), and an extract also having been published in Dutch (1989).
In addition, she has published a number of short stories, including “Long Time Story” (1998), “My Uncle Theophilus” (1998), “The Entertainment” (2001-2002), and “My Father and The Confederate Soldier” (2006).
Over the years, Mrs. Edgell has received numerous professional honors, awards, prizes and citations, including an MBE in 2007 for “services to literature and to the community,” and The Caribbean Examinations Council selected Beka Lamb as a curriculum requirement. Indeed, Beka Lamb has been part of school and examination curricula in the region as well as in other parts of the world since its publication. Her work has been critiqued and reviewed by major international writers and publishers.
She later received a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Kent State University in 2005, and an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados, in 2009.
Zee served as director of the Belize Women’s Bureau (Women’s Department) during the periods 1981-82 and 1986-87; and later she was a lecturer at the University College of Belize (now the University of Belize).
Over the decades, Mrs. Edgell took time to visit schools around Belize to meet with young people studying her work and read to them from her books. Her last such activity took place in 2016 with a visit to E.P. Yorke High School.
After retiring from Kent State University as a tenured English professor in 2009, Mrs. Edgell moved to St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, Alvin, who passed away in May 2020, at age 96.
Preparations for a funeral in Belize City on a date yet to be announced, are reportedly underway.
Kremandala extends our sincere condolences to all her relatives and friends. Rest in peace, beloved sister Zee Edgell.