Bim

a Caribbean literary magazine which first appeared in December 1942, published by the Young Men's Progressive Club, under the founding editorship of the late Barbadian writer Frank Collymore; among subsequent editors have been A. N. Forde, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, John Wickham, and E. L. Cozier. Together with the Guyanese journal Kyk-Over-Al (1945–61) it exerted a great influence over the development of Caribbean literature. Produced twice yearly in Barbados, Bim was the most important literary outlet in the Caribbean during the formative years of West Indian literature. George Lamming wrote in an introduction to the June 1955 issue: ‘There are not many West Indian writers today who did not use Bim as a kind of platform, the surest, if not the only avenue, by which they might reach a literate and sensitive reading public, and almost all of the West Indians who are now writers in a more professional sense and whose work has compelled the attention of readers and writers in other countries, were introduced, so to speak, by Bim.’ The younger Caribbean journal Savacou produced a special issue (7/8, 1973) as a 70th-birthday tribute to Collymore, including reprints from back issues of Bim as well as new writing by its contributors.