BIM (magazine)

BIM is a distinguished "little magazine" first published in Barbados in 1942. It was one of two pioneering Caribbean literary journals to have been established in the 1940s, the other being A. J. Seymour's Kyk-Over-Al in British Guiana in 1945. According to the Barbados National Register, on the submission of 16 volumes of BIM magazine together with the associated Frank Collymore Collection of correspondence in 2008:

"The importance of the magazine is that it provides a miniature history of primary sources in West Indian literature. In the mid twentieth century the magazine fostered the idea, new in the region at that time, that the profession of writing is an honorable one. The magazine was the chief meeting place for Anglophone literary ideas thus enabling the writers to overcome their isolation. Bim provided also an opportunity for new writers to appear in print alongside more established Caribbean writers who had published abroad. The magazine was thus a major force for regional dialogue, championing regionalism by its actions. Almost every important West Indian writer contributed first poems and short stories to Bim. It was here that they obtained their first encouragement and it was from here that links were established with the BBC programme Caribbean Voices and its producer Henry Swanzy who championed the development of Caribbean writing abroad."^[1]

The founding editor of BIM was Frank Collymore. Subsequent editors have included A. N. Forde, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, John Wickham and E. L. Cozier. The current editor is Esther Phillips.^[2]