(Extract of an interview with Kim Sheldon, Georgetown, Guyana, September, 2019. Sheldon is a novelist and historian.)
PP History is fascinating. Research is fascinating. Guyana is fascinating – from El Dorado to sugar to oil, yes, Guyana is fascinating. The most fascinating thing of Guyana though is its people especially those who have settled in the Diaspora, those who are writing back to Guyana. This writing back to Guyana is important.
I am addressing you as a writer and historian, why have you come to Guyana?
KS The reason that I have come to Guyana is that I feel I am coming back to Guyana because my family and my ancestors were born here and their stories here are so rich and beautiful.
As a historian, there is so much that is fascinating here that is the past, the present and I hope will be the future. There are so many rich stories in Guyana for a writer, it is amazing.
PP Let’s get personal – what exactly brought you to Guyana?
KS I came back here because my mother was born here and I am researching her life and getting a feel what it was like for her living in Guyana at the time before moving to England, and the life she lived there as well.
But as a writer getting a feel, more than the feel, the taste as well of the country your grandparents, your mother etc came from. So at the moment I am writing my mother’s life story. As a writer, it is important for the writer to get a feel of the place….
PP Sounds like an anthropologist going further and deeper than the historian.
KS Yes.
PP Let’s couple the historian with the writer, why do you write? I think you have a website to that effect.
KS Yes, I do.
I do several things – as well as writing fiction, I write non-fiction. I write …because it is important to get the words out in one form or the other especially the emotions as well. As a writer, it is part and parcel of my soul to bring those stories out, and at the moment, it is my family’s soul that I’m bringing out.
PP So that’s a book in the making.
Let’s talk about your first book – a novel. I like the title ‘A Hidden Legacy’ for fits into our conversation. ‘A Hidden Legacy’ was shortlisted for the London Literary Festival, congratulations.
KS Thank you.
PP Let’s talk about that hidden legacy – the novel.
KS It is about a painting done by Allan Ramsay who was the Court painter in England during the late 1700s and he actually painted Queen Charlotte with her natural features because it is said she was a mixed race woman and it [the novel] is about how the main characters in my book have been painted out which were the two children of colour. They were painted out and covered up because slavery at that time was either popular or unpopular and if you were nouveau riche in that business, you didn’t really want to say you were in that business. The book is about their lives; how one child returns to the Caribbean becoming a revolutionary and the other one, a girl, joins the abolitionist movement.
PP Intriguing….
KS One of the things I wanted to put into to it because this is the real hidden legacy as well for there were black people in London and at the time, there were 15,000 black people which people rarely talked about – some did well in life, some had normal lives, some did not do so well in life. But there were many interesting people there of colour and many of my fictional characters will meet true life characters like the famous violinist George Bridgetower.
In fiction that can come across more openly than academically.
PP So you are reclaiming those lost figures in that painting. This brings to mind the long poem, ‘Turner’ by David Dabydeen. Dabydeen read for a PhD in 18th-century literature and art.
KS That is also a hidden story but it is coming out more and more and it needs to be written in our words and from our hearts instead of been written about. They are our ancestors too and bringing out their stories in our words is really important.
PP Fred D’Aguiar’s ‘Feeding the Ghost’ also comes to mind…and most of this writing is coming from out of Guyana.
As I said earlier, people are writing back to the land, to Guyana.
How far have you gotten with your research in Guyana?
KS I literally just picked up my mother’s birth certificate.
We also have a beautiful mix heritage – Chinese, African, Indian and so on.
What we did not know was my grandmother’s name and I really want to research this because sadly we learn she did go into the leprosy hospital and her story ought to be told and now I’ve gotten her name…
PP Share this certificate with us.
KS My mother’s name is Alicia Lowe. Alicia Gertrude Samuels is her married name…
The other side – my father’s side…well, we went to New Amsterdam [to learn more]. All these stories I will put together in order to write a family saga like the great family sagas we read so often about…A great family saga of Guyana – this is my quest… (to be continued)
Responses to this author please telephone 226-0065 of email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
