Sasenarine Persaud @ Edinburgh International Book Festival

Sasenarine Persaud recently returned from a successful eight (8) event reading tour of the UK, focused in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Sasenarine’s trip, funded mainly by the British Council, coincided with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. As part of the Games, a poet from each Commonwealth country read and recorded a poem on the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) Poetry Postcard Program. Sasenarine’s poem, ‘Georgetown’ (from his soon to be released book, Love in a Time of Technology) is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022ys3f 

The poem was printed on postcards and distributed throughout the Commonwealth Games. Sasenarine opened his tour with a reading and discussion on poetry and poetics, culture, homelands and exiles at the BBC in Glasgow in front a live audience.

This was followed by an interview and a reading at the Empire Café in Glasgow with an audience of over 200, and with the Scottish Minister of External Affairs and International Development introducing the evening. The Empire Café was formed to look at Scottish involvement with the slave trade and its association with the plantation system in the West Indies. The Empire Café commissioned Sasenarine to write a poem (‘Campbellville’) which was published by the Café in an anthology, and which led to the Café extending an invitation to visit Scotland.

Two (2) readings at the Saltire Society (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), in the historic courtyard building where Robert Louis Stevenson’s narrator of Treasure Island told the story of his iconic novel,followed.

Sasenarine rounded off his trip with three (3) readings at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF). He had the distinction of opening the 2014 edition of the EIBF on August 9, with a solo reading to a packed tent at a reading called “10 at 10”. Later in the day he read with three (3) other poets in an event billed as “Voices of the Caribbean Diaspora,” which occurred in the Baillie Gifford Main Theatre and which was introduced by Jackie Kay. His final appearance at the EIBF was at an event titled, ”Jura Unbound”, an evening of poetry, music and reflections, the evening before his departure.

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Poetry Fundraiser: Franklyn March

A night of poetry, good food and raffle prizes to raise funds for Franklyn March, a sickle cell patient in Jamaica who desperately needs a hip replacement surgery.

Saturday,August 16, 2014

6:00 to 9:00 p.m

Florida international University, 

Biscayne Bay Campus, 

Wolfe University Center 

Room 155, 

3000 NE 151st Street, 

North Miami, Florida

If you cannot attend, please consider a donation to the gofundme campaign:

http://www.gofundme.com/9zwes4

One Heart.

10th Anniversary Issue of Anthurium

Cyril Dabydeen Publishes New Book of Stories

My Multi-Ethnic Friends & Other Stories (Guernica Editions) is Cyril Dabydeen’s latest volume which spans a range of narratives set in Canada and other parts of the world reflecting lived experiences. The Guyanese-born Canadian writer has been publishing for many years; his work has appeared internationally in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.

Here in this new volume are shifting spaces and changing lives  forming the core of  Dabydeen’s stories. Tropical places with verdant greenery are subverted; his sometimes stark images supplant the traditionally exotic. In Canada’s northern hemisphere, Dabydeen’s immigrant and non-immigrant characters delve into memories; whether Greek, Italian,  Russian  or West Indian, for them new situations resonate in northwestern Ontario, Toronto or Detroit. They are even active in a mayoralty race heating up in Ottawa. It’s also a Muslim’s faith tested in Vancouver.Stories such as the title one and others like “Bearing Gifts,” “Believers,” “Look Who’s Coming,” and “In Transit” reflect ironic twists and styles.

This new book follows on Cyril Dabydeen’s previous fiction such as My Brahmin Days and Other Stories (TSAR Publications. Toronto), Play a Song Somebody: New and Selected Stories (Mosaic Press, Toronto), Black Jesus and Other Stories (TSAR), and North of the Equator (Beach Holme, Vancouver).  Dabydeen has also published three short novels, and one full-length novel, Drums of My Flesh (TSAR), nominated for the prestigious IMPAC/Dublin Prize and a short-listed finalist for the City of Ottawa Book Prize. This novel also won the top Guyana Prize for fiction.

Dabydeen’s writing explores the many-sidedness of immigrant life seen as an "outsider"  as he evokes metaphors capturing new ways of feeling laced with their psychological insights.  “Cyril Dabydeen is a writer of global concerns, permanently crossing boundaries,” said Spanish professor Dr  Pilar Somacarrera in Canadian Literature in reviewing his fiction.  "It is the epiphany, the moment of illumination, which comes out of an ordinary experience," writes Peter Nazareth (International Writing Program, University of Iowa) in World Literature Today.  Other critics have described Dabydeen’s work as: "narratives that often contain the lyrical consolidations of images that are the mark of a poet" (Books in Canada); and,  “His stories are seamless between past and present, fantasy and reality....a significant post-colonial writer” (World Literature Today).

A former Poet Laureate of the city (1984-87), Dabydeen has taught creative writing at the University of Ottawa and has published over 15 books, including eight collections of poetry. He also edited the anthologies A Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape (Mosaic Press, l987), Another Way To Dance: Contemporary Asian Poetry in Canada and the USA (TSAR, 1992), and Beyond Sangre Grande: Caribbean Writing Today (TSAR, 2012). Over the years he has read from his books across Canada, the USA, Cuba and the Caribbean, the UK and Europe, and in India.

For more information, pls. phone:  613/230-7854 (ph.) Or E-mail:cdabydee@uottawa.ca or cdabydeen@ncf.ca

RIP: Jan Carew, Guyanese Literary Icon

Renowned Guyana-born literary icon, Professor Jan Carew has died.

He was 92 years old.

Speaking to Demerara Waves Online News (www.demwaves.com ) from the United States, his daughter, Shantoba Carew said he died of natural causes at midnight Wednesday 5 December at his home in Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America.

Asked how she best remembered her father, Shantoba said: "He had a unique perspective on what it is to have a mission in life because every decade he seemed to have a new career but the goal is always the same to have done something in life." The only continuous career he had, she said, was being a writer but in the latter part of his life he was regarded as an academic.

His funeral will take place on December 29 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

For more  information, please follow this link: 

http://www.demerarawaves.com/index.php/201212085121/Latest/guyanese-literary-icon-jan-carew-dies.html

'via Blog this'



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Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

Happy Birthday, Jan Carew !

Jan Rynveld Carew (born 24 September 1920 in Agricola, Guyana)  is a novelist, playwright, poet and educator. His works, diverse in form and multifaceted, make Jan Carew an important intellectual of the Caribbean world. His poetry and his first two novels, Black Midas and The Wild Coast, were significant landmarks of the West Indian literature then attempting to cope with its colonial past and assert its wish for autonomy. 

 Carew also played an important part in the Black movement gaining strength in England and North America, publishing reviews and newspapers, producing programs and plays for the radio and the television. His scholarly research drove him to question traditional historiographies and the prevailing historical models of the conquest of America. The way he reframed  Christopher Columbus as an historical character outside his mythical hagiography became a necessary path in his mind to build anew the Caribbean world on sounder foundations.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Carew

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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

Guyana Folk Festival 2012—Masquerade Lives.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATIONGuyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc. & Department of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Youth, and SportsGuyana Folk Festival 2012:  Symposium“Masquerade Lives.”Georgetown, GuyanaSouth AmericaDecember 13, 14, 2012
Guyana Folk Festival Secretariat1368 E. 89 Street, Suite # 2Brooklyn, New York, NY 11236 U.S.A.TEL: 718.209.5207 FAX: 718.209.6157WEBSITE: www.guyfolkfest.org    MISSION
To organize an event that would contribute to public education and appreciation of the history and direction of masquerade in Guyana.
RationaleIn recent years masquerade has been in decline and for many; the few masquerade bands that take to the streets during the Christmas masquerade season are considered and treated as nuisances.  The mission of the 10th annual symposium is to collaborate with Guyana’s Ministry of Culture and other Guyanese institutions to create a space for public education, the examination of the deep heritage associated with Guyana’s masquerade traditions, especially its origins, history, international connections, and aesthetic dimensions--(costume, dance, music, craft, and performance).  The symposium also aspires to contribute to a strategy for the rehabilitation and promotion of the tradition.
OBJECTIVES: 
Specifically, the symposium will: • Support the thrust of Guyana Folk Festival 2012—Masquerade Lives.• Contribute to the celebration and rehabilitation of the masquerade art form in Guyana• Identify, discuss and demonstrate the origins of the masquerade tradition in Guyana and its regional connections. • Explore the factors that contributed to the diffusion and decline of the heritage in Guyana.• Explore the contributions of various institutions and personalities to the promotion and celebration of masquerade in Guyana—including Frank Pilgrim, Lavinia Williams, Billy Pilgrim, Errol Ross Brewster, etc.).• Identify and pay homage to Guyana’s masquerade pioneers—including  Joe Flounce, Bandula, the Blacketts, Boysie Sage, Bundarie, Putagee, etc.)• Create a space to showcase current trends in Guyanese and Caribbean masquerade performance.• Provide an opportunity for knowledge transfer through short workshops in basic steps, music, chanting/toasting, etc.• Provide a space to premiere the creation of new choreographies, music, poetry, etc. that celebrate Guyana’s masquerade heritage and promote new aesthetic directions.• Facilitate the collecting of materials for dissemination in Guyana Folk magazine and the academic press; to support scholarly research, for depositing in the Caribbean Collection of the University of Guyana, and for immediate use in radio and television programming in Guyana and elsewhere.
CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS--PAPERS, POSTERS, VIDEOS/FILMS, PERFORMANCES, ART, POEMS, MUSIC, PHOTOGRAPHS
Potential topics include but are not limited to: 
Origins of the art formImmigration, class, and transferal and transmission of masqueradeThe poetics of the masquerade: literary expressionsMasquerade as graphic text (PAINTING)Costuming: meaning and subtextsThe masquerade band and community prideMasquerade as public spectacleMasquerade and foreign policyMasquerade and CARICOM festival artsThe Music(s) of MasqueradeMasquerade and the BhoomMasquerade and biographyMasquerade as a socio-historical unit in curricula in schools
THE PROCESS
Persons interested in participating in any of the forms of expression are invited to register by proposing a provisional topic by August 15, 2012.  Paper and other abstracts are due by September 30, 2012.  Abstracts should not exceed 300 words in length and should be sent in electronic form or hard copy to the Symposium Organizing Committee (Dr. Vibert Cambridge (Ohio University), Dr. Juliet Emanuel (The City University of New York), and Dr. Michael Scott (University of Guyana] c/o Dr. Vibert Cambridge (cambridg@ohio.edu), Professor Emeritus, School of Media Arts and Studies, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.  

Georgetown, GuyanaJune 28, 2012
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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

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Happy Birthday, Martin Carter

Martin Carter is known primarily as a voice of protest against British colonialism. It is a well deserved distinction. Carter was not a poet who used his talents to merely showcase his fluency with words. His themes of freedom, defiance, and the power of the imagination are rooted in the people and the landscape of Guyana.



And yet, years after the revolution has been betrayed, his original vision bears witness against the racial animosities fueled by craven political aspirations. Martin Carter’s poems mock these ambitions by their insistence on the necessity of love which propels his work into the annals of the prophetic:



This is the dark time, my love
it is the season of oppression, dark metal
and tears;
it is the festival of guns
the carnival of misery;
everywhere the faces of men are strained
and anxious



from Poems of Resistance




Martin Carter belonged to that generation of writers whose vision of community in their respective homelands extended to the rest of the Caribbean, and represented the highest ideals of the region. If Carter’s poems could sink into our bone and marrow, we would not face the ecological disasters that are so prevalent in the Caribbean.



It is still a “dark time” for us in Guyana and the Caribbean, but Carter made us realize that there was a time when hope was brightest despite the obstacles that we faced. He was willing to be imprisoned and die for that hope. Carter’s hope was not a small flame, but a furnace. His poems endure because of his lifelong commitment to his country, his people, and his art.



Give thanks, Martin Carter.

***

For more information on Martin Carter, please visit, http://www.martincarter.blogspot.com/

1 Minute Book Review: Lantana Strangling Ixora by Sasenarine Persaud

Name of the book: Lantana Strangling Ixora

Author: Sasenarine Persaud

Publisher: Tsar Books

What's the book about? "This collection is as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement. The lantana is a flower of South American origin, and the ixora of Asian origin. The lantana, a creeper that grows profusely, often engulfing other plants, provides a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas—the mainstreaming and divesting of yoga from its Indian origins being the most visible manifestation."

Why am I reading the book? Coupled with his knowledge of classic Indian mythology, Persaud uses metaphors with a keen understanding of their limits as well as their ability to communicate complex emotional states. The tragedy of the Indian diaspora and the loss of vibrant histories are balanced only by his urbane wit and compassion.

Quote from the book:

There were times in the morning
we questioned the bloom
of the previous evening, watering
canna lilies, clearing the live oaks'
acorns from our white wrought iron bench.

Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Lantana-Strangling-Ixora-Sasenarine-Persaud/dp/1894770722

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I've modified this format from One Minute Book Reviews: http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/

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Geoffrey Philp’s Blog Spot receives a percentage of the purchase price on anything you buy through links to Amazon, Shambala Books, Hay House, or any of the Google ads or Google Custom Search.

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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

The Literary Hang 2012

By Juliet Emanuel


In 2012 the Literary Hang emphasizes publishing. Self publishers, small presses and larger companies are invited to participate.  This format allows all areas of publishing to display and promote their writers and their works. 

It also allows aspiring writers to explore any publishing options present on that day.  This event is proposed as one that promotes the creativity of Guyanese expression, in particular, and the Caribbean Diaspora, at large.


As part of the activities for the day publishers, accepted for The Literary Hang, may present their contracted writers during the day at their individual spaces. In addition, there will be a public reading by invited writers during the day.  


Part of that program will be an interview with the actors from the hugely successful 2011 adaptation of C. L. R. James' Minty Alley. All publishers will be responsible for the delivery, set up, sales and removal of all their own goods. GCA will not store any material or be responsible for any sales.


All genres of the published word, except pornography, will be considered for inclusion in the general activities of the day.  Magazines, graphic readers, e-books, children's literature, cookbooks, poetry, plays, videos and CD's of performances, novels, short stories and other prose are expected to form part of the offerings on display and for sale. This event is open to all ages and children are especially welcome.


There will be refreshments for sale.

The date of the Literary Hang is Saturday, June 9, 2012, at the Flatbush Reformed Church at the corner of Flatbush and Church Aves.  It will begin at 1 and end at 7 pm.

Interested parties must contact The Literary Hang Committee, Juliet Emanuel, Chair by e-mail, jaemanuel@cs.com or by calling Guyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc. The Secretariat at 718 209 5207, Claire A. Goring, 


Cultural Director.
The Literary Hang (TM) is a production of Guyana Cultural Association of 
New York, Inc.


The Literary Hang 2012 will be a gala celebration of the craft of writing and the book.





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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.


Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

New Book: Sunday's Child by Anne Lyken-Garner

Anne Lyken-Garner is the author of Sunday's Child - the inspiring, true tale of a little girl struggling to rise above appalling living conditions, poverty, violence, and abuse.


About The Book

Sunday's Child tells of the harrowing abuse of a little girl by her grandmother, and gives the reader a glimpse of the political and cultural climate of Guyana in the 1908s.

In a desperate economic crisis, Guyana resorts to food and energy rationing. Acclaimed author Anne Lyken-Garner's tale describes the experiences of a young girl who is forced to spend hours in food lines and relates the sadness and desperation that is part of her everyday life.

A soldier in Jonestown, where more than nine hundred people committed mass suicide, the young girl's uncle tells her of the dead bodies. However, she doesn't mention the one that has witnessed. When she loses the one person in her life who cares for her - and tries to save her - she knows in her heart that her life is about to end.

Sunday's Child will be released on May 22, 2012. 


Please visit the author's page on release day to purchase this book:
http://www.pulsepub.net/Anne_Lyken-Garner.html

Anne has also started an event on Facebook towards this release. You can join this event at the link below to ask her any questions about anything relating to Sunday's Child or her publishing journey.
 
Event:
http://www.facebook.com/events/385124968204320/

Where and How to Buy
Sunday's Child is available as a Kindle download from Amazon and a Nook download from Barnes & Noble. It will also be available in PDF and EPUB format from Pulse online bookstore. The PDF version will be viewable on all PC and laptop systems, as well as smart phones, and the EPUB version will be viewable on all eReaders: Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony Reader, BlackBerry and Playbook.

A special discount will allow readers to purchase an electronic copy (EPUB or PDF) for only $1.99, using the promo code: FFSCALG


Simply enter the code in the appropriate field while ordering a copy of Sunday's Child from Pulse online bookstore: http://www.shop.pulsepub.net

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The documents posted on this Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. I do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other Web sites or agencies is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this Web site to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by this blog.

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Thank you!

New Book: Lantana Strangling Ixora by Sasenarine Persaud

This collection is as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement. The lantana is a flower of South American origin, and the ixora of Asian origin. The lantana, a creeper that grows profusely, often engulfing other plants, provides a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas—the mainstreaming and divesting of yoga from its Indian origins being the most visible manifestation. This collection ranges widely in its geographical and historical concerns, from Canada to Guyana to India and places in between, exploring the contradictions in our lives: familial influences, terrorism, literature, politics, race, and the power of language and representation. As always in Persaud’s work, love is ever present. This is a collection that displays mastery over nuances of language, and is at once quirky and humorous as it continues an engagement with the theme of “place as muse.” 




About Sasenarine Persaud

Sasenarine Persaud is an essayist, novelist, short story writer, and poet. He is the author of ten books: seven poetry collections, two novels, and a book of short stories. His latest book, In a Boston Night, was published by TSAR in 2008. He was born in Guyana and has lived for several years in Canada. He has served as a vice-president and chair of the membership committee of the League of Canadian Poets, on the Board of Directors of the Scarborough Arts Council (Toronto), and on juries for the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. He presently resides in Tampa, Florida. 

All TSAR Publications books are available from bookstores, online booksellers, and wholesalers 

www.tsarbooks.com 

Winners at Guyana Prize for Literature Awards

Mark Mc Watt is the winner in both the Guyana Prize 2010 Poetry category and the Caribbean Award 2010 Poetry category for the Guyana Prize for Literature. Mc Watt’s compilation The Journey to Le Repentir won the top prize in both categories.

In photo from left to right are Chairman of the Jury, Professor Victor Ramraj; Chairman of the Guyana Prize for Literature committee, Al Creighton; Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Lawrence Carrington; President Bharrat Jagdeo; Jury member, Professor Stewart Brown; winner of the Caribbean Award 2010 Fiction category, Myriam F. A. Chancy; Mark Mc Watt and winner of the Guyana Prize 2010 Fiction category David Dabydeen.

Photo by Anjuli Persaud

http://www.stabroeknews.com/2011/news/stories/09/01/mc-watt-double-winner-at-guyana-prize-for-literature-awards/attachment/prize/

Guyana Folk Festival 2011 Symposium: Aal bady, waan bady

Aal bady, waan bady

Guyana Folk Festival 2011 Symposium

“Arrivals, Encounters, and Exchanges”

Saturday, September 3, 2011

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

On the 10^th anniversary of GCA and the Guyana Folk Festival, the annual symposium will focus and the on-going process of (aal bady) becoming (waan bady)—Guyanese.

MISSION

There is a tendency among the dominant discourses on Guyanese life and society to emphasize differences among Guyanese root heritages.  This nurtures mistrust and diverts attention from the cultural similarities, common experiences and traditions of solidarity and friendship that are evident in contemporary Guyanese culture. 

The organizers of the 2011 symposium believe that the appreciation and the celebration of cultural similarities and common experiences among Guyana’s ethnic communities—at home and in the diaspora—are  necessities in contemporary Guyanese life and society. 

To this end, the symposium’s goal is to explore contemporary ideas about the state of Guyanese culture.  To encourage this, the symposium has the following objectives:

·         To share and encourage new knowledge related to the people of Guyana—Arrivals;

·         To share and encourage new knowledge related to the conditions and contexts of the encounters and contacts in the peopling of Guyana [and its diaspora]—Encounters;

·         To share and encourage new knowledge about the resulting cultural exchanges that emerged from the arrivals and encounters of our ancestors in Guyana and the current roles and future viability of those cultural developments—Exchanges.

Arrivals

To share new knowledge related to the peopling of Guyana.

Archeological and other scientific evidence indicate the populating of this region of the Americas can be traced back to between 9,000 and 12.000 years.  The first peoples of this era were parts of a wider civilization that had developed hybrids such as corn (maize) and potato—two globally important foods. Dr. Denis Williams’ Prehistoric Guyana and Dr. George Mentore’s Of Passionate Curves and Desirable Cadences:  Themes on Waiwai Social Being and Dr. Desrey Caesar-Fox’s dissertation Variants of Akawaio Spoken at Waramadong have been valuable contributions to the understanding of our Amerindian ancestors’ engagement with life in Amazonia.

Through expanding access to international archives, new databases, and the application of more robust research designs interdisciplinary researchers, including Guyanese historiographers, are now offering sharper descriptions of the other people who have populated Guyana since Columbus’s encounter with the Americas in 1492.  These new works are beginning to humanize our ancestors who came from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East by giving them voice and context.

Publications such as Alvin Thompson’s Unprofitable Servants:  Crown Slaves in Berbice, Guyana 1803 - 1831; McGowan, Rose and Grainer’s Themes in African Guyanese History; Maureen Walker-Lewis’s Central Africa in the Caribbean; Clem Seecharran’s Sweetening Bitter Sugar; Trevor Sue-A-Quan’s Cane Reapers and Cane Ripples; and Sister Mary Noel’s The Portuguese of Guyana:  A Study in Culture and Conflict, among others are valuable sources of evidence about the arrivals of our ancestors.

To share and encourage new knowledge related to the conditions and contexts of the encounters and contacts in the peopling of Guyana [and its diaspora]—

Encounters

Recent scholarship by Guyanese academics has been providing increasing specificity and texture about the sites of and the nature of the encounters associated with the peopling of Guyana.  Dr. Brenda Josiah has been doing pioneering work on the post-emancipation African Village movement and the pork-knocking heritage.  Dr. Juanita DeBarros’ Order and Place in a Colonial City:  Patterns of Struggle and Resistance on Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889 - 1924 is a ground-breaking exploration of the intersection of public health, and the exercise of colonial power in Georgetown.

The encounters of our ancestors have continued to inform the Guyanese literary imagination.  These encounters are explored in multiple genres—including autobiography, biography, poetry, song, and science fiction.  Contemporary exemplars of this tradition include Grace Agard’s I’se a Long Memoried Woman; Oonya Kempadoo’s Buxton Spice; Dr. Brenda Do Harris’s Calabash Parkway; Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions; and Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber.

Exchanges

To share and encourage new knowledge about the resulting cultural exchanges that emerged from the arrivals and encounters of our ancestors in Guyana and the current roles and future viability of those cultural developments.

Interest in Guyanese heritage accelerated in the post-independence years.  Out of the research on this aspect of Guyanese life piloted by John Rickford, Walter Edwards, Peter Kempadoo, Marc Mathews, Diazal Samad, Sister Rose Magdalene, Lakshmi Kalicharran, Kean Gibson, Desrey Fox, Brian Moore, Roy Brummel, Alan Fenty, and others, it is now possible to identity and celebrate several areas of cultural similarity—in language, cuisine, fashion, music, dance, spirituality, and aspirations, to name a few. 

The Objectives

The objectives of the 2011 Symposium are  to:

·        Provide a platform for sharing recent academic knowledge on Guyanese life and society
·        Offer an opportunity to explore the nature of the arrivals, encounters, and exchanges associated with the making of the modern Guyanese nation;
·         Explore the expressive culture that have emerged as a result of the exchanges associated with the making of the modern Guyanese nation;
·         Contribute to the eradication of persistent negative racial and ethnic stereotypes in Guyanese society;
·         Contribute to the building of trust among Guyanese
·         Contribute to the reinforcement of the bonds of solidarity and friendships,
·         Encourage and sustain creativity and achievement;
·         Support the visualization of contemporary Guyaneseness; and
·         Facilitate the collecting of materials for dissemination in Guyana Folk magazine and the academic press; to support scholarly research, for depositing in the Guyana Collection, Ohio University Library, Caribbean Collection of the University of Guyana, and Guyana’s National Library; and for immediate use in radio, television and on-line programming in the United States and Guyana.

Rationale

The symposium organizers invites paper proposals and panels to examine the cultural exchanges that have emerged in Guyana as a result to the arrivals and encounters among our multiple ancestors.  Starting with our Amerindian ancestors who arrived almost 12,000 years ago and since the early 15^th century, our ancestors from Europe, African, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean. 

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Arrivals

Shipmates and Jhaji Bhais

Sociological/psychological effects of arrival

Neo-arrivants and the creation of the Guyanese diaspora

Encounters

            Encountering nature

            Religious encounters

            Business encounters

Solidarity and friendships

            Rituals and identity

            Education resolutions

Exchanges

            Name Changing

Literature

Food

            Fashion/Clothes

            Festivals

            Music

            Dance

Marriage—Kwe Kwe and Dig Dutty

            Spirituality

Ethnic enclaves and global Guyana

THE PROCESS

Persons interested in submitting papers are invited to register by proposing a provisional topic by May 30, 2011.  Paper abstracts are due by June 30, 2011.  Abstracts should not exceed 300 words in length and should be sent in electronic form or hard copy to Dr. Vibert C. Cambridge  cambridg@ohio.edu or School of Media Arts and Studies, RTVC 213, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.

This symposium is scheduled for Saturday, September 3, 2011 at EdZone, Teacher’s College/Columbia University, New York, NY.

***

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The Guyana Cultural Association of New York Awards: Call for Nominations

The Guyana Cultural Association of New York Awards

Call for Nominations

Guyana Cultural Association of New York celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2011. The anniversary theme is “Aal bady – waan bady” to acknowledge Guyana’s cosmopolitan heritage and the emergence of a common culture.  Our annual Awards Ceremony on August 31^st, 2011 will mark the occasion.  Nominations for awards are now open until May 14, 2011.

Since 2001 the Guyana Cultural Association of New York has been the leader in recognizing those who have inspired us. This year’s awards ceremony on August 31, 2011, is in Brooklyn, New York. We will acclaim creators and enablers of various features of our culture where all of us are one people - Aal bady, waan bady.  

Award Categories

Our awards celebrate outstanding contributors in the following categories:

• Guyana Cultural Association Award
• Guyana Cultural Association Award - Youth
• Guyana Cultural Association Exemplary Award
• Guyana Cultural Association Lifetime Achievement Award

What We Do - Nominations Are Open April 14th to May 14^th 2011

Request nominations from anyone or entity and assess the submissions that are complete and on time. 

Nomination can be submitted for a person or an entity whose work fits within the theme – Aal bady, Waan Bady

Youth nominations must detail the academic and extracurricular accomplishments that position the nominee above the average in his or her area of scholastic and cultural activities.

The nominations form is here:

http://www.guyfolkfest.org/awards_nominations2011.htm#Nominations

More information on the 2011 Awards and the Folk Festival events are available at www.guyfolkfest.org or you may contact the GCA Cultural Director, Claire Goring.    

Ronald H. Lammy

Co-Chair, Guyana Cultural Association Awards Committee 

Arts & Academics - Teaching Pan a New Way

Visit the eCaroh Caribbean Emporium
http://www.PanOnTheWeb.com - Pan and More
http://BourdaMarketPlace.com

***

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