Read Caribbean: Miami Book Fair 2019

ReadCaribbean programming features extensive Caribbean-specific events, including readings and panel discussions, storytelling for children, music and more, plus publishers at Street Fair. When appropriate, author events will take place in Creole or French with simultaneous translation into English.

ReadCaribbean se yon bèl pwogram ki selebre tout mèvèy pitit Karayib la reyalize nan domèn kiltirèl e literè. Li òganize deba ak konferans, lekti ak tout kalite aktivite pou timoun, fim ayisyen, dans, mizik, elatriye. Distribitè liv ap pran lari a pou yo pandan Street Fair la. Lè sa apwopriye, prezantasyon ekriven yo ap an kreyòl oswa franse, avèk entèpretasyon similtane nan lang angle.

A very special thank you to Jan Mapou, Myrtha Wroy, Jerry Delince, Cergine Cator, and Sherley Louis members, of Sosyete Koukouy who collaborate with Miami Book Fair on ReadCaribbean programs, including the Little Haiti Book Festival, that takes place annually in May. Established in 1985, Sosyete Koukouy is dedicated to preserving Haitian culture in the United States . Their mission is the preservation, perpetuation and presentation of Haitian cultural performances and exhibitions, to Creole and non-Creole-speaking audiences.

Yon kokennchenn mèsi bay Jan Mapou, Myrtha Wroy, Jerry Delince, Cergine Cator, ak Sherley Louis, ki se manm Sosyete Koukouy e kolaboratè Miami Book Fair nan kad pwogram ReadCaribbean lan, avèk paregzanp Little Haiti Book Festival, ki fèt chak ane nan mwa d me. Depi 1985, Sosyete Koukouy, Inc. ap travay pou prezève kilti ayisyèn nan Ozetazini. Misyon li se prezèvasyon ak pwomosyon kilti peyi Ayiti, e piblik li vize se non sèlman moun ki pale kreyòl, men se moun ki pa pale kreyòl tou.

For more information: https://www.miamibookfair.com/program/readcaribbean-2019/

A List of Poetry Books by Jamaican Authors

By Kwame Dawes

After my survey of Jamaican poetry appeared last week, I received many calls from people about how to get hold of some of the key titles by Jamaican poets. Of course, many of the works of these poets are long out of print, but there is a rich range and body of poetry that is still in print and that would reward the time and resources spent to acquire them. Needless to say, this list is an edited list - meaning it is selective and somewhat, though guardedly, subjective. It is, in other words, hardly comprehensive in the same way that the survey was not. It will reflect embarrassing omissions, and for those I apologise in advance.

There are a number of anthologies that feature Jamaican poetry that will offer an even broader range of work to supplement what I have listed here. And for those who are interested in watching some of the poets in action, I strongly encourage you to search out names on YouTube, where most of these poets do appear performing their work. Of special interest in that regard would be anything by Mikey Smith, Jean Binta Breeze, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Owen Blakka Ellis, Lillian Allen, Michael St George, and Staceyann Chin, to name just a few. Finally, a great resource would be The Poetry Archive in the UK, where some of our major poets are featured: (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet [2]).

JAMAICAN POETRY BOOK SAMPLER

Olive Senior Gardening in the Tropics (Idiomatic, Canada, 2009)

Tony McNeill Chinese Lanterns from the Blue Child (Peepal Tree, UK, 1998)

Lorna Goodison Controlling the Silver (University of Michigan Press, 2006)

George Campbell First Poems (Peepal Tree Press, UK, 2011)

LKJ - Selected Poems (Penguin, UK, 2006)

Geoffrey Philp Florida Bound (Peepal Tree UK, 1998)

Tanya Shirley She Who Sleeps with Bones (Peepal Tree, UK, 2009)

Mervyn Morris - I Been There Sort Of: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, UK, 2006)

Dennis Scott - Uncle Time (University of Pittsburg Press, US, 1973)

Ishion Hutchison - Far District (Peepal Tree, UK, 2010)

Ann Margaret Lim - Festival of Wild Orchid (Peepal Tree UK, 2013)

Edward Baugh - It Was the Singing (Sandberry Press, JA, 2000)

Velma Pollard - Shame Trees Don't Grow Here (Peepal Tree UK, 1992)

SharaMacallum - The Face of Water: New and Selected Poems (Peepal Tree, UK, 2011)

Jean Binta Breeze - Spring Cleaning (Virago, UK, 1992)

Donna Aza Weir Soley - First Rain (Peepal Tree, 2006)

Millicent Graham - The Damp in Things (Peepal Tree, 2009)

Colin Channer - Providential (Akashic Books, US/ Peepal Tree, UK, 2015)

Kei Miller - Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion (Carcanet, UK 2014)

Mutabaruka - The Next Poems/The First Poems (Paul Issa Publications, 2005)

Neville Dawes - Fugue and Other Writings (Peepal Tree, 2012)

Louise Bennet - Aunty Roachy Seh: Selected Poems (Sangster, 1993

Claude McKay - Complete Poems (University of Illinois, US, 2014)

Mark McMorris - Entrepot (Coffee House Press, US, 2010)

Benjamin Zephaniah Too Black, Too Strong (Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2001)

Pamela Mordecai - Subversive Sonnets (TSAR Publications, Canada, 2012)

Louis Simpson - Struggling Times (BOA US, 2009)

Marcia Douglas - Electricity Cone to Cocoa Bottom (Peepal Tree, UK, 1999)

Opal Palmer Adisa - 4-Headed Woman (Tia Chucha Press, US, 2013)

Ralph Thompson - View from Mount Diablo (Peepal Tree, UK, 2003)

Claudia Rankine - Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, US, 2014)

Poetry books by Jamaican authors

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/art-leisure/20150809/poetry-books-jamaican-authors#.VckNg38ZinY.mailto

My Ideal Schedule - Miami Book Fair International 2013

Saturday, November 23

Time	Event
10:00 a.m.	SHARON OLDS on Stag's Leap, AUGUST KLEINZAHLER on The Hotel Oneira, and MARY JO SALTER on Nothing by Design
11:00 a.m.	ROBERT ANTONI on As Flies to Whatless Boys, ELSIE AUGUSTAVE on The Roving Tree, and OONYA KEMPADOO on All Decent Animals
11:30 a.m.	Three Generations: ROBERT PINSKY on Singing School: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry, CAMPBELL MCGRATH on In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys: Poems, and RICHARD BLANCO on Looking for the Gulf Motel
12:00 p.m.	Father/Daughter TENNESSEE REED on Life Among The X Challenged with Ishmael Reed in conversation about inspiration and the writing life
1:00 p.m.	D.T. MAX on David Foster Wallace , STANLEY CROUCH on Charlie Parker , ELIZABETH WINDER on Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 and GREG BELLOW on Saul Bellow's Heart: A Son's Memoir
2:00 p.m.	WALTER MOSLEY on Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery, in conversation with author and NPR's "voice of books," ALAN CHEUSE
3:00 p.m.	LUIS ALBERTO URREA on Queen of America, JAMAICA KINCAID on See Now Then, and RUSSELL BANKS on A Permanent Member of the Family
3:00 p.m.	JAMES ALLEN HALL on Now You're the Enemy , JULIE MARIE WADE on Postage Due , ORLANDO RICARDO MENES on Fetish: Poems , and JEN KARETNICK on Landscaping for Wildlife
3:30 p.m.	ANDRE DUBUS III on Dirty Love, VICTORIA REDEL on Make Me Do Things: Stories, and FIONA MAAZEL on Woke Up Lonely
4:00 p.m.	KWAME DAWES on Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems and Nilo Cruz on Color of Desire/Hurricane: Two Plays
4:00 p.m.	LUCIE BROCK-BROIDO on Stay, Illusion: Poems , ALFRED CORN on Tables: Poems , and JONATHAN GALASSI on Left-Handed: Poems
4:30 p.m.	Thirty-Fourth Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS Ceremony

 

Sunday, November 24

Time	Event
10:00 a.m.	JUNOT DIAZ on This is How You Lose Her
11:30 a.m.	NIKKI GIOVANNI on Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid
12:30 p.m.	AMY TAN on The Valley of Amazement
12:30 p.m.	JAMES W. HALL on Going Dark, GREG ILES on The Devil's Punchbowl, JEFF ABBOTT on Downfall, and ADAM MANSBACH on The Dead Run
1:30 p.m.	EDWIDGE DANTICAT on Claire of the Sea Light in conversation with Alfred A. Knopf editor, Robin Desser
2:00 p.m.	KEVIN BARRY on Dark Lies the Island, JOHN DUFRESNE on No Regrets, Coyote, and BOB SHACOCHIS on The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
2:30 p.m.	RICHARD RUSSO on Elsewhere: A Memoir
3:00 p.m.	BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ on Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and M. EVELINA GALANG on Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery
4:30 p.m.	RICHARD BLANCO on For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey
4:30 p.m.	JACINTO LUCAS PIRES on The True Actor, PRESTON ALLEN on Every Boy Should Have A Man, and BRIAN BANDELL on Mute
5:00 p.m.	2013 Miami Book Fair Closing Author CHRIS MATTHEWS on Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked
5:00 p.m.	ANDREA ASKOWITZ, JAN BECKER, M.J. FIEVRE, M. EVELINA GALANG, NICHOLAS GARNETT, and FABIENNE SYLVIA JOSAPHAT on All That Glitters: Non-Fiction from Sliver of Stone

To build your own schedule, please follow this link: http://www.miamibookfair.com/myschedule.aspx

"Set the captives free..."

Geoffrey Philp, author of Marcus and the Amazons
Contact: geoffreyphilp101 [at] gmail.com

African-American and Caribbean Authors: Miami Book Fair International 2013

Several of the country’s most renowned and celebrated contemporary African-American and Caribbean authors will be featured at this year’s 30^th anniversary edition of the Miami Book Fair International (MBFI), presented by The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College (MDC). Award-winning authors Nikki Giovanni, Walter Mosley, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat and Kwame Dawes are among the lineup of nearly 35 African-American and Caribbean authors who will discuss their latest works during the Fair, as well participate in book signings, readings, and one-on-one discussions.

They join other distinguished African-American authors, such as Stanley Crouch, Dr. Carl Hart, Terry McMillan, James McBride, Albert “Prodigy” Johnson and Representative John Lewis. The exciting lineup of top Caribbean authors also includes up-and-coming author David Valentine Bernard and Oonya Kempadoo.  A few of the authors, though not of African nor Caribbean descent, have written and presented about African-American and the Caribbean experience in their work, such as Robert Antoni, Jonathan M. Katz and Candice Russell. For scheduled events, please visit www.miamibookfair.com.

Here’s a list of this year’s featured authors of African-American and Caribbean descent, as well as those whose work highlights black culture and interests:  

African-American

Preston Allen, Every Boy Should Have a Man

MK Asante, BUCK

Stanley Crouch, Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker

Lolis Eric Elie, Treme: Stories and Recipes from the Heart of New Orleans

Ru Freeman, On Sal Mal Lane

Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid

Dr. Carl Hart, High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society

Mitchell S. Jackson, The Residue Years: A Novel

Albert “Prodigy” Johnson, H.N.I.C.

Representative John Lewis, Mark: Book One

Walter Mosley, Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery

Ishmael Reed, American Book Awards Moderator

Tennessee Reed, Life Among The X Challenged

Donald Spivey, If Only You Were White: The Life of Leroy “Satchel” Paige (Robert Paige, son of Satchel Paige and appearing with Donald Spivey)

Terry McMillan, Who Asked You?

L. Lamar Wilson, poetry reading, Sacrilegion

James McBride, The Good Lord Bird

D. Marvin Jones, Fear of a Hip Hop Planet: America’s New Dilemma

Jason Mott, The Returned: A Novel

Caribbean

Robert Antoni, As Flies to Whatless Boys

Elsie Augustave, The Roving Tree

David Valentine Bernard, The Thirsty Earth: A Novel

Edwidge Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light

Kwame Dawes, Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems

Thomas Glave, Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh

Fabienne Sylvia Josaphat, All That Glitters: Non-Fiction from Sliver of Stone

Jonathan M. Katz, The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster

Oonya Kempadoo, All Decent Animals: A Novel

Jamaica Kincaid, See Now Then: A Novel

Montague Kobbe, The Night of the Rambler

Candice Russell, Masterpieces of Haitian Art

Evelyne Trouillot, Rosalie l’infâme

George Vilson, Kandelab 101: Notated Haitian Folk And Vodou Songs, Volume 1

M.J. Fievre, editor, All That Glitters

June Aming, Cecly Ann Mitchell and Colleen Selvon-Rampersad (representing the Writer’s Union of Trinidad & Tobago)

For more information, please visit www.miamibookfair.com, call 305-237-3528, or email wbookfair@mdc.edu

Jamaican Authors Connect with Home

(L-R Colin Channer and Kwame Dawes)

by Claire Rocastle.

Many of the celebrated Jamaican authors who have been published in the last 50 years have made their homes abroad, in a diasporic wave, fanning out from their homeland in the Caribbean. The effects of this diaspora appeal to contemporary writers and become important themes in their work. The Jamaican literary voice has always been strong, reaching out to audiences all over the world, yet the writing has its roots in home and continues to connect authors and readers with their past.

Literary Tradition

The Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica gives Jamaican writers a voice each year and in 2012 the event celebrated 50 years of independence, with the theme of ‘jubilation’. Among the writers asked to speak was Kerry Young, who still calls Jamaica her home despite having lived over 40 years in the UK. Her novel Pao was nominated for the Commonwealth Prize in 2012.

Many other writers make their homes abroad, such as Orlando Patterson and Olive Senior, and Kwame Dawes, an Emmy award-winning poet who teaches at the University of Nebraska. Dawes explained that, despite the diasporic nature of Jamaica, its people find each other and connect again in anthologies and at festivals and that it has always been this way. Novelist Colin Channer claims that the diasporic pattern has led to a literary boon for Jamaican writers and their culture, because they are exposed to so many different types of people and this gives them a platform within global literature, rather than striving for national identity.

Brave New Writing

Channer edited an anthology for the Calabash festival entitled Kingston Noir, exploring the darker side of Jamaican life and showcasing a variety of exciting writers. Most of them were born in Jamaica and came together to explore the different facets of Kingston life and the way its boundaries crisscross. The anthology highlights the outsider’s experience of Jamaica and it turns the images of sunshine, sea and reggae on their heads, revealing instead an underworld that threatens the peace and tranquillity of the country.

One of the stories in Kingston Noir focuses on adolescent girls and their school daydreams that are shattered when a classmate disappears. Writer Marlon James evokes the loss of innocence very well in this short story, as do others in their contributions that take from hard-boiled fiction and gangster themes.

The New York Times featured an article on Jamaican writers becoming much more emboldened by their culture, particularly the influence of Reggae, and literally exploding onto the pages of fiction with their voices. Reggae has tuned the world into Jamaican culture much more and since 1962, and the country’s independence, writers have become confident and multinational. Kwame Dawes explains that literature in the Caribbean was reacting to colonialism in the 20^th Century, as writers left the country to seek their education abroad. Being taken away from this landscape, Dawes claims, meant that writers had to try to ‘recapture the Jamaican experience’.

Busting Out

Marlon James again features in Iron Balloons, an anthology with universal themes but with Jamaica at its heart. The title refers to performers in music terms who are unable to bust out and claim the success that should come their way. James claims the Calabash workshops in Jamaica encouraged him to try to publish his novel John Crow’s Devil, which had received between 70 and 80 rejections from publishers at that time. Finally it was bought by an independent publisher in Brooklyn called Akashic, specializing in Caribbean writers. James’ novel subsequently became a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Opportunities for writers are highly competitive today. There are various reputable sites offering genuine freelance work to talented writers, such as writing for wait.co.uk, and these are good for flexing your literary muscles in between novel writing.  In addition, global writing prizes are becoming more popular and are recognizing diverse voices within different categories of the literary marketplace. 

The Windham Campbell Prizes was launched at Yale University earlier this year and it has become one of the largest prizes for fiction, nonfiction and drama in the world, with nine $150,000 prizes being awarded. Among the fifty-nine writers nominated from around the world were participants from Jamaica, India, Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa. The prize has given minor writers an important voice. Zoe Wicomb, a finalist who wrote a collection of Apartheid era stories, said the prize was a validation she hadn’t dreamt of and that it would support her through her future writing efforts.

Brave new voices are finding that there is an audience out there, and it is one that values original, thought provoking fiction with its roots in ‘home’.

1 Minute Book Review: Kingston Noir

Name of the book: Kingston Noir
Author: Colin Channer, Editor
Publisher: Akashic Books
What's the book about? "Original stories by Marlon James, Kwame Dawes, Patricia Powell, Colin Channer, Marcia Douglas, Leone Ross, Kei Miller, Christopher John Farley, Ian Thomson, Thomas Glave, and Chris Abani. From Trench Town to Half Way Tree to Norbrook to Portmore and beyond, the stories of Kingston Noir shine light into the darkest corners of this fabled city."
Why am I reading the book? Kingston Noir introduces a new genre of writing into Jamaican literature, and I was interested in seeing how the writers would handle the classic noir plots with private investigators, plainclothes policemen, and victims of circumstance. I could say I was surprised, but I would be lying. Colin Channer is to be congratulated for bringing together these remarkable writers whose stories transcend the de rigueur cynicism of the genre to reveal  homicidal class conflicts, homophobia and hypocrisies in the badass capital of the world.
Quote from the book: 
"Yes, I am a fat man, but don't sorry for me. In Jamaica a woman like a big man. She can see he is prosperous, and that he can be in charge. People call you "boss" before they even know who you are. "Big man," "Boss," "Officer," "King," and my favorite, "My Lord." When a woman call you, "My Lord," that is a sweetness."
"My Lord" by Kwame Dawes
Where to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Noir-Akashic-Colin-Channer/dp/1617750743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338385951&sr=1-1

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1 Minute Book Review:Wheels by Kwame Dawes

Name of the book: Wheels

Author: Kwame Dawes

Publisher: Peepal Tree Press 

What's the book about? "In Wheels, Kwame Dawes brings the lyric poem face to face with the politics, natural disasters, social upheavals and ideological complexity of the world in the first part of this century...these are poems seeking a way to understand the world." 

Why am I reading the book? Kwame Dawes, one of the Caribbean's leading writers, translates Ezekiel's vision of "wheels within wheels" to an Antillean reality.

Quote from the book: 


In the season of drought and hurricane
the stiff earth cracks and the spawned
eggs of mosquitoes burst into a plague
of coughs and side stitches.

From "Last Days"

Where to buy: http://www.peepaltreepress.com/single_book_display.asp?isbn=9781845231422&au_id=16

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Voices of Haiti: A Post-Quake Odyssey in Verse

The initial shock of the earthquake has passed but Haiti continues its struggle to overcome both man-made and natural disasters.


Poet Kwame Dawes presents his multimedia exploration of Haiti's earthquake through the lives, and voices, of Haitians confronting the ongoing consequences of this disaster, especially those living with HIV/AIDS.

Event date:

February 6, 2012 - 6:30pm

Performance Venue:

Victor E. Clarke Recital Hall

University of Miami, Florida

Reception to follow

Space is limited, please RSVP by February 1st.

Featuring:


Kwame Dawes (featured poet)
Kevin Simmonds (composer and performer)
Valetta Brinson (soprano)


With the photography of Andre Lambertson


And multimedia by Robin Bell, Nathalie Applewhite and Maura Youngman
Voices of Haiti is a multimedia performance based on poems by Kwame Dawes, set to music by composer Kevin Simmonds. The work grew out of a year-long Pulitzer Center commission to report on Haiti after the earthquake with reporter/poet Kwame Dawes, reporter Lisa Armstrong, and photographer Andre Lambertson. While in Haiti Dawes wrote poems in response to the stories he heard. These poems are at the heart of Voices of Haiti: A Post- Quake Odyssey in Verse. The work explores the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS after the devastating earthquake. It is a celebration of their lives and their survival. The project also encompasses reporting featured in USA Today, The New York Times, The Daily Beast,The Atlantic, and PBS NewsHour. Voices of Haiti premiered at the 2011 National Black Theater Festival in August 2011.


Voices of Haiti premiered at the 2011 National Black Theater Festival.
Learn more about this reporting initiative, After the Quake: HIV/AIDS in Haiti




Watch the featured video poems, set to music.


The Performers:


Kwame Dawes, a Ghanaian-Jamaican writer and poet, is the author of sixteen collections of verse, as well as the Emmy Award-winning, Pulitzer Center-sponsored, Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica, which explores the experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. Dawes is also the author of numerous plays, essays and books. He is a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner and a former Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina. He is the executive director and founder of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. He is the director of the University of South Carolina Arts Institute as well and the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place in Jamaica in May of each year. His most recent work Bloom of Stones: A Tri-lingual Anthology of Haitian Poems After the Earthquake collects the work of more than thirty Haitian poets, many who live in Haiti and others who are part of the large Haitian diaspora.


Kevin Simmonds is a poet, musician and performance artist originally from New Orleans. He has three forthcoming books: the poetry collection Mad for Meat (Salmon Poetry), the edited anthology Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality (Sibling Rivalry Press) and the edited collectionOta Benga Under My Mother's Roof (University of South Carolina), by the late poet Carrie Allen McCray-Nickens. His gene-defying short film feti(sh)ame, based on interviews with gay men, premiered at 2011 San Francisco's Frameline Festival and Provincetown International Film Festival. His newest multimedia project ORIENT: a new anthropology, about Asian-Black relations, will debut in San Franciso and Los Angeles in 2012, the twentieth anniversary of the LA Riots.


Valetta Brinson. A native of Memphis, soprano Valetta Brinson has performed in the UK, Japan and throughout the US. She specializes in the music of Bach, Mozart and Strauss and has performed with the Nashville Opera Association, Mississippi Opera Association and Opera Memphis in such productions as Der Rosenkavelier, Madama Butterfly and Gianni Schicchi, Die Zauberflöte and Falstaff. In 2004, she created the role of Coretta Scott King in the opera, The Promise, by composer John Baur. She is currently completing the Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music where she is a Hohenberg-Scheidt Scholar. She received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Morris Brown College and the Master of Arts degree from Middle Tennessee State University. She teaches at Southwest Tennessee Community College.

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"Dust (For Kwame Dawes) by Geoffrey Philp

Narrating the Caribbean Nation: A Celebration of Literature and Orature

Peepal Tree Press is pleased to announce that a two-day conference, Narrating the Caribbean Nation: A Celebration of Literature and Orature, will be held on 13-15th April 2012 at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. The conference will celebrate the Silver Anniversary of Peepal Tree Press and highlight the contribution of its own authors and other Caribbean and Black British writers to contemporary world literature.

We are also delighted that Kwame Dawes has confirmed his participation as a keynote speaker. Widely recognised as one of the Caribbean's leading writers, Kwame is also Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, and Associate Poetry Editor at Peepal Tree Press.

The conference aims to bring together writers, academics, students, teachers and people with an interest in Caribbean literature to discuss the rich body of both Caribbean and Black British writing and to explore the relationship between the two. Our investigation into the 'narration of nation' centres around a definition of the Caribbean nation as one rooted in a rich, unique and plural community which transcends physical borders and extends across the Caribbean and the Caribbean Diaspora.  

 

We will examine culture, politics, identities, childhood, performance and many other topics in the context of the Caribbean and its diasporas and discuss how the past 25 years of Caribbean writing connects to, and builds on, classic texts of Caribbean literature. Moreover, the conference will offer opportunities to hear the ideas of new and established writers and to watch them perform.

The conference will juxtapose academic papers with less formal presentations from activists and practitioners in the field in order to raise the profile of writers of Caribbean heritage. Over the course of the conference, Leeds-based Peepal Tree Press, which has been the home of the best in Caribbean, Black British and South Asian literature for 25 years, will showcase new and classic works in print and in performance by its authors from around the world.

Possible paper topics may include but are not limited to:

• Caribbean identities·       
• Diasporic Caribbean identities·       
• Resistance, politics, racism·       
• Publishing writing from the Caribbean and its diaspora·       
• Gender and sexuality·       
• Indo-Caribbean literature        
• Classic Caribbean texts·       
• Discovering new Caribbean writers·        
• Oral narratives and storytelling·       
• Auto/biography, memoir, life writing·       
• Caribbean texts in translation·       
• Caribbean women writers·       
• Caribbean poetry·       
• Teaching Caribbean writing·        
• Caribbean short story       
• Intersections between Caribbean literature, orature, and visual arts·       
• Writing for children
• Sport and pastimes in the Caribbean and its diaspora 

Please send abstracts of 200 words and brief biodata

(via Word attachment) to Claire Chambers, Emily Marshall, and Emma Smith on  narratingnation@gmail.com 

with 'Abstract' in the subject line by 23 December 2011.

We also welcome poster presentations (for examples  http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/presentations_poster.html)  Further details about the conference are available on   http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/2458986896

Or contact Kadija George:  narratingnation@gmail.com

Selected papers will be published in a journal special issue and/or an edited collection.

Convenors:

Kadija George, Inscribe/Peepal Tree Press      

Dorothea Smartt, Inscribe/Peepal Tree Press

Emma Smith, Peepal Tree Press 
Kevin Hylton, Leeds Metropolitan University
Claire Chambers, Leeds Metropolitan University
Emily Marshall, Leeds Metropolitan University