Award-winning, thought provoking books to include on your 2018 booklist
By Petamber Persaud
We, lovers of literature, can say goodbye to 2017 – the year marking the centennial end to indentureship – with satisfaction, knowing that some of the books published in this year will follow us into 2018 while others will stay with us during 2018 and decades beyond. 
From its inception, the book was treated with respect, even with awe, for man valued the book very highly with regards to its potential as a tool of education and instruction, as a repository for storage and retrieval of information, as a custodian of traditions and languages, as a forum for art and entertainment, stimulating the imagination and improving memory, a source of inspiration, among other usages. And the book has lived up to expectations even in its new forms and formats.
Below are some of the books crossing my desk during 2017:
The Indentured Servants from Bengal to Bush Lot to Belize by Karan Chand
This historical novel is a family saga covering three generations originating in India moving to Guyana and then Belize, recording the “struggles and resilience in a desperate effort to stay afloat and, for some, to sour”.
This is the inspiring story of Mattai, born in Bengal, kidnapped and transported across the Kala Pani from Calcutta to Bush Lot Village on the Essequibo Coast of Guyana as an indentured labourer where he served three periods of Indentureship lasting fourteen years, surviving to made good in life and live to see many of his descendants making good.
Karma Curry by Jerry K. Durbeej
This second novel by the author is about love, lust, betrayal, unrequited love, filial responsibility, revenge, remorse and atonement. “Karma Curry” is about reaping what you sow through how your actions in previous lives affect your current life. “Karma Curry” is, on one hand, about the continuation of tradition and, on the other hand, the challenging and breaking of tradition. This conflict is sustained throughout the lives of each main player and throughout the novel and it is this conflict that accounts for the novel been a cut above novels exploring similar themes. 
Stories set in two Countries by Madan M. Gopal
This book of fifteen short stories is a fascinating read where the author “with subtle and overt humour and twists to satisfy different tastes” brings “multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-national fragrance into the fathomless pit of provocative relationships”. (R. R. Jadoopat)
Red Coconut: Bridging the Racial Divide by Habeeb Alli
This eighteenth book by the author is a collection of poems, articles and excerpts from his blog speaking to the overarching theme evident in all of the author’s projects: love.
Junta: The Coup is On by Ken Puddicombe
This political/romance thriller is set in Saint Anglia, an imaginary island in the Caribbean bearing many similarities to Guyana as people, places and events are invoked in the forms of Ricky Singh, Jim Jones, Rabbi Washington, Father Darke, etc even CARD (Crucial Action for the Restoration of Democracy) is not dissimilar to GUARD. Saint Anglia was a “peaceful place” – sugar plantation economy thriving first on enslaved labour and then indentured labour – until after independence when the ugly head of racism, class and social injustice brought divisions to the surface in a way forcing everyone to take a side.
Guyanese Writers of Indian Ancestry by Petamber Persaud
This book was published to mark the centennial end of indentureship in 2017. It captures the life and work of over seventy Guyanese writers of Indian ancestry, paying tribute to our literary ancestors while seeking to correct sin of commission and sin of omission. For the first time, some of the neglected and slighted writers and the writers omitted from the mainstream will see the light of day and breathe again, their voices heard again as more research will fill out the skeleton of data and infuse character into them. 
This pocketbook is small and slim, but covers a lot of ground previously untouched by anyone and contains some of the data in my effort to map Guyanese literature, some data I have been collecting for over two decades.
Part two of this article will feature the following books: “Mahaica Belle Rings” by Collette Jones-Chin; “The Girl from the Sugar Plantation” by Sharon Maas; “Kamarang” by Michael Jordon; “Guyana and the Wider World” by Sister Noel Menezes; “The Guyanese Culture – Fusion or Diffusion?” by Rudy Insanally; “The Guyana Contract” by Rosalind McLymont; “Aspects of European-Guyanese Heritage” compiled and edited by the Guyana Heritage Society et al.; “West Indian history and literature” by Frank Birbalsingh; “50 Nation Builders of Guyana”; “50 Creative Icons of Guyana”; “National Bibliography of Guyana”.
Responses to this author please telephone 226-0065 of email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
What’s happening:
Over GYD$1,000,000 in prize money up for grabs in the 2018 issue of The Guyana Annual. New closing date for entries to the various competitions is January 15, 2018. For further information go to The Guyana Annual on Facebook or email: theguyanaannual@gmail.com
