By Petamber Persaud
(Continued from last week)
The 2012 Guyana Prize for Literature was awarded in September 2013.
Extract of an interview with Brendan de Caires in Georgetown, Guyana, August 16, 2013.
de Caires is a literary critic and reviewer, working in Canada. He has worked in Trinidad as editor and book reviewer for the “Caribbean Review of Books”, (CRB) and for the review section of “Caribbean Beat”. He has also published other literary articles and reviews, and is a co-founder of Moray House Trust in Georgetown.
De Caries is a native of Guyana who has lived in Britain, Trinidad, Barbados, Mexico, and New York, working as editor, human rights activist, and English literature and ESL teacher. He is currently program and communications coordinator for PEN Canada. This is the second time he has sat on the panel of judges for The Guyana Prize for Literature.
PP So the writers and artists have abandoned their role?
BdC No, not at all, I don’t think that is the case…
PP Then why it is not coming out in our writing?
BdC That’s a structural problem. I sure there are writers right now composing the very book that I’d like to read. But where would they publish and who would read it? These are the obstacles. I mean nobody can live in a society with serious problems without wishing to respond to them. But why would you respond to it in a novel when novels are not read in your society? It’s a chicken and egg thing.
PP Am I beating a dead horse with my projects – two columns and two TV programmes on Guyanese literature … trying to show how our writers deal with these issues?
BdC No. What you’re doing sounds very honourable. I think that how you come to love literature is irrelevant, getting there is the thing. Good writers are people who have something worth saying about their reality. They put this down on paper as intelligently and as honestly as they can. That is the hallmark of any writer who becomes a classic. Somehow we don’t have that idea of writers anymore; we have a nonsense notion of writers.
PP So they are not given the regard and respect they deserve. Earlier you suggest we may have a structural problem with our literature.
BdC Yes, but I think the problem of the structure is larger than you’re suggesting. In this case the structure is the entire society.
PP Expand
BdC You can’t fix one aspect of this situation – you just can’t drop a million dollars on the problem and create a publishing house in a vacuum. People need good bookstores, and a culture of reading. There have to be book clubs, and that means children have to be reading from an early age.
That, in turn, means that writers have to visit those children and talk to them so that they can start thinking that instead of aspiring to business school, they might eventually consider becoming writers.
I grew up in awe of Martin Carter and I can think of nothing finer than to be a writer, precisely because he was my idea of what it would mean to be a writer.
PP So all is not lost?
BdC I’ve never felt that all is lost. What has been lost is the culture of reading. But cultures return, they don’t just disappear.
PP As we see in fashion…I started this conversation by talking about reading and it seems we have come full circle now focusing on a reading culture. I hope this trend of a reading culture returns and I hope…I know – I feel you’re also thinking along this same line.
BdC Intelligence never disappears from a culture altogether, it goes elsewhere, and all I am hoping is that it returns to books and words and the pursuit of explanation of your own society in more conventional forms.
PP And you could help in this respect.
BdC I am part of the disaspora, I am safely tucked away in Canada, but I will do whatever I can from afar.
PP Your book reviews will be helpful – we cannot diminish the support of critical writing to creative work. We’d be happy for whatever help you can offer.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
What’s happening:
• The Guyana Annual 2012-2013 magazine is now available at Guyenterprise Ltd, at Austin’s bookstore and from the editor at the above contacts. This issue of the magazine is dedicated to E. R. Braithwaite. The magazine also features articles on copyright, law of intellectual property, creative industries, oral traditions of Guyana, the future of West Indian cricket and the future of books.
• Coming soon: “An Introduction to Guyanese Literature” by Petamber Persaud. This 150-page-book is a rich collection of Guyanese pride and joy, containing more than 100 photographs.
