EmailAfter a brief period post-1968, when it became fashionable to acknowledge the existence of texts from the French West Indies in the syllabuses of a few of the newer universities, very few students came across Caribbean authors in their study of literature in French. Today, Caribbean literature not only figures prominently in many French departments' programmes, but is a productive area of research in the UK and Ireland, largely as a result of the work of Jones, and those who worked with her, inspired by her knowledge, enthusiasm and untiring efforts.
Born Bridget Wheeler in London, she attended Mich- enden grammar school, from where she won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge. She got a first in French and Spanish, and went on to do a PhD at King's College, London. Her doctoral thesis, Antonin Artaud: His Work And Literary Situation, though never published, was a pioneering work on an author little known in Britain at the time.
It was at Cambridge that she met Donald Jones, a Jamaican student of chemical engineering. They married in 1959, and four years later moved to Jamaica. Bridget immersed herself in the country's life, whether in her kitchen - the codfish fritters, rice and peas at their parties were legendary - or in her contribution to weekly arts programmes on the radio. After a year of schoolteaching, she joined the staff of the University of the West Indies, and became part of a team of young academics adapting syllabuses more closely tied to the Caribbean than had been possible when the institution was a college of London University.
Although she continued to teach 19th- and 20th-century French metropolitan literature, Jones was instrumental in developing an option in French Caribbean writing, which eventually became a compulsory paper for students doing a special degree in French, and supervised one of the first PhD theses on French Caribbean literature. She was an exacting teacher, and a generation of students widened its horizons by taking part in the readings and productions of French plays that she organised.
In 1982, Jones and her two sons settled in Britain, while Donald took up a post in Saudi Arabia. She continued to publish on francophone Caribbean literature in general, and the theatre and French Guiana in particular. She taught at the University of Reading in 1985 and 1986, and was appointed to the department of modern languages of the Roehampton Institute in 1988.
Her illness forced her to retire seven years later, but she continued to help former colleagues, encourage postgraduate students and publish until the end of her life. One of her works, Paradoxes Of French Caribbean Theatre (1997), a scholarly checklist of nearly 400 plays in French in Creole written or produced in the French overseas departments of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyane since 1900, on which she collaborated with Sita Littlewood, is a model of precision, and will serve researchers in the area for years to come.
In 1989, Jones was among the founders of the Association for the Study of Caribbean and African Literature in French. Young academics specialising in the area are unanimous in acknowledging the role her support has played in their careers. She also published with authority and finesse on writing from the English-speaking West Indies, and her own poems were published in anthologies both in the Caribbean and in this country.
Jones is survived by Donald and their two sons, Daniel and Matthew.
• Bridget Heather Jones (née Wheeler), academic, born November 20 1935; died April 4 2000
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