Art visual np2

Over drinks with a friend the other day the conversation turned to the following question: stranded on a deserted island for the rest of your life what books would you want to have with you?  Now being stranded on a deserted island might mean you'd be a little preoccupied with others things like fighting off the animals or hunting for food but you'd surely find time for some good literature!  1. The Bible  This one is a no-brainer. Most of Western literature, in some form or fashion, is traced to these texts which never fail to startle and inspire in every sense of the word. A must have. 2. The Tempest and/or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare .  The Tempes t is widely accepted as Shakespeare's last and--in the views of some--best and most atypical play. An elegy that is something of an homage to all that came before it from the Bard: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that ...

A Nobel laureate, a MacArthur "genius" fellow and a first-time author are all shortlisted for the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the winner of which is to be announced during the first ever Bocas Literary Festival to be held in Trinidad this April. Here are the first lines from the three books shortlisted from Edwidge Danticat, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott and first-time author Tiphanie Yanique: * * * >>>EDWIDGE DANTICAT : Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (Princeton University Press, 208 pp.) On November 12, 1964, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a huge crowd gathered to witness an execution. The president of Haiti at that time was the dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who was seven years into what would be a fifteen-year term. On the day of the execution, he decreed that government offices be closed so that hundreds of state employees could be in the crowd. Schools were shut down and principals ordered to bring their students. Hundreds...

I'm a slow reader and am way behind in my reading. But here is a sneak peek at what's at my bedside these days: *   Crick Crack by Merle Hodge and Summer Lightning by Olive Senior. Two Caribbean classics which everybody should read. I recently finished a writing workshop moderated by Hodge, who is a brilliant writer and academic and is also a social activist. The workshop, held under the auspices of the Cropper Foundation, gave unforgettable insight into the thinking and processes of writers like Hodge. I went back to Crick Crack after the workshop, having learnt a lot about writing and checked it out with a fresh perspective. From the start is it is a novel of understated power and I am looking forward to finishing it. The first story of the short-story collection Summer Lightning is its title story. A brilliant piece of writing with a wry, wise but dangerous tone. You have the sense that great literature is unfolding before you, like a chill wind that will not relent. Rea...

Trinidadian writer, journalist and critic Raymond Ramcharitar's first work of fiction The Island Quintet  has been nominated for a Commonwealth Writer's Prize. The book, a series of narratives published by Peepal Tree Press in Leeds, United Kingdom, last year, has been shortlisted in the category of best first book by a writer from Canada or the Caribbean. You can see some of the other books nominated at the Commonwealth website here . The book has been largely well received, with academic and critic David Dabydeen describing it thus in a review for the UK's Independent  newspaper: The remarkable quality of this book is how closely observed character and landscape are, a precision which pays homage to both Naipaul and Walcott. The prose simmers, then erupts into outrageously satirical commentary on island life, the calms down again, Ramcharitar displaying a superb control of narrative flow. For those of you who missed The Island Quintet, here is its opening sentence: Trying...

The novel's cover is a detail from 'Grand Rivere' (2001-2002) by Trinidad-based British artist Peter Doig.  "There were no answers. I had nothing. There was only heat and the bright light that made that kind of heat. There was no shade, nowhere to rest, nowhere that the sun was not. You follow your life, you don't lead your life. I could sing with pain. Sing so high, high, high. Would my mother hear my singing? Once I had nothing. Now I had less than nothing. My whole life. My whole life I wanted to know my father. I wanted him more than anybody. More that Dr Emmanuel Rodiguez. I shall never know happiness. The light was on the other side of the world, in Southhampton, England. All my life I stepped towards it, little steps. I was halfway there and then I sank. The light pulled me from my darkness. I remembered the light when everything was bad. And now you put out the light. Just like that. I had less than nothing. It couldn't be like this. It couldn't be ...

  Trinidadian Geoffrey Holder is featured in the book A Wealth of Wisdom. (Photo by Donald Andrew Agarrat.) " Trinidad has a British colonial class structure: what school did you go to, and who's your mother? Just like Charles Dickens, but with black faces. Strange! I went to Queen's Royal College. It was very prestigious and expensive, but Daddy scrimped the pennies. I was a shy guy because I used to stammer. I couldn't speak. And I was dyslexic. I didn't know the word until Ennis Cosby made it known. It's important to know the word because otherwise you grow up feeling that you are a dunce when you can't read, or not well. Numbers also played games with me; I didn't know that was part of my dyslexia. But I am blessed. I took it and I used it. If you cannot speak, you listen. Writers listen. If you cannot speak, you look. I can see better than somebody who talks too much. They're not looking. I walk the streets and I see the most beautiful people, ...