Evan Jones (born 1927, Portland, Jamaica) is a poet, playwright and screenwriter based in Britain. He was educated in Jamaica, the United States and England. Jones taught at schools in the United States before moving to England in 1956 and beginning a career as a writer.
He wrote the scripts for the feature films King & Country, Modesty Blaise, Funeral in Berlin, and several television plays.
Evan Jones was born in in 1927, the son of a banana farmer. He grew up in rural Jamaica and was educated at the prestigious boarding school Munro College and Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Wadham College, Oxford in 1952 with a BA (Hons) in English literature. Jones taught at the George School in Pennsylvania and Wesleyan University, Connecticut. In 1956, he moved to England and earned his living as a writer of documentary drama, television plays and feature films.
His works include the television documentary series The Fight Against Slavery and several films directed by Joseph Losey including Eva (a collaboration with Hugo Butler, 1962), King & Country (1964) and Modesty Blaise (1966). Other screenplays include , Funeral in Berlin (also 1966), Escape to Victory (1981) and a A Show of Force (1990). He is also notable as the author of Madhouse on Castle Street (1963), a now lost BBC television play, which featured the acting début of Bob Dylan. Jones has also written poetry, biographies and novels for children. His wife, Joanna, is an actor and his daughters Melissa and Sadie are both novelists.
- Born in Portland Jamaica in 1927
- Migrate to England in 1956
- Wrote the well known poem "The Song of the Banana Man". The poem is set in the mid-forties in Jamaica. The main person in the poem is a small farmer who ekes out a living in the very hard hillsides of Portland of Jamaica. He’s proud of what he does, he knows who he is, and he’s not afraid of facing anyone who wants to criticize him. I like it because of that expression of who a Jamaican is, but I also like it because it was one of the first attempts by any Jamaican to use the Jamaican Creole, in a way that could have universal understanding.
- Wrote the screenplay for BBC documentary "The fight against slavery" as well as screenplays for movies like "Funeral in Berlin" released in 1966 starring Michael Caine
- Wrote the book "Alonso and the Drug Baron" Macmillan Caribbean - ISBN: 9781405031752
