http://www.indocaribbeanworld.com/archives/july2/mainews2.html
Headlines Continued
Headlines Issue Released July 2 2003
Headlines Continued
Author Kris Rampersad speaks out
There are enough writers too, more of them erupting into voice year after year, and a nascent publishing industry in the Caribbean moving into its own in spite of direct competition from American TV, videos, the internet and other high tech threats to literacy.
The rosiness of my immediate response to all this is tempered somewhat by the fact that "bookishness" is largely a middle-class phenomenon and that many many Caribbean folk, especially the youth (who are our future practitioners and artists) were not present in large numbers, save for those who were brought in by the schools.
A number of writers live and work in this city - in fact Toronto has been described as the city with the largest concentration of Caribbean writers globally. But the bounty of their presence is not really evident in the life of the Caribbean community except on rare occasions such as that of Book fair week. A pity.
I say "week" because the build up to the Book fair as well as the aftermath increased the overall intensity of the cultural assertion that was taking place. On Thursday, June 26, the Ontario Steelpan Association (OSA) honoured one of the foremost innovators of the Steelpan, Dr. Ellie Mannette, at a function at the Scarborough Civic Centre. And on June 27, at the Monarch Park Collegiate, Ellie Mannette was also featured at a concert including such accomplished steelpan artists as Mark Mosca and Talib Reid-Robinson.This event also showcased rising stars such as Aaron Seunarine and Gareth Burgess, and performances by the Bruce Skerritt Trio, building to a climactic finish by the youth of the Afropan Steel Orchestra.
On Sunday June 22 at the Grand Baccus Banquet Hall in Scarborough, nationals of Trinidad and Tobago gathered to welcome to Toronto their new high commissioner in Ottawa, Mr. Arnold Piggott. Mr. Piggott spoke of the continued economic progress of T&T and its goal of reaching developed country status by the year 2020. He exclaimed too at the capacity crowd that had gathered, their accomplishments, their energy and their "rainbow" appearance.
Other Caribbean territories (14 altogether) also staged their own country events in the lead up to the festival and afterwards. Informal gatherings of writers with friends and family, dinners, ordinary liming, media talks and author interviews added to the buzz. One such interview was done by this writer with Kris Rampersad, whose recent work, Finding a Place: IndoTrinidadian Literature, was launched at a reception at the T&T consulate on June 17. Kris’s introduction states that this work "is about the growth and development of literature and a literary consciousness among Indo Trinidadians between 1850 and 1950, and more significantly, how they came to English and what they brought to it over the 100-year period."
Here are some excerpts from this interview:
Ramabai Espinet: What prompted you to write this book?.
Kris Rampersad: Well, there is much in the book that’s descriptive because the material was disappearing, so I thought that I needed to record what existed.
RE: How will this material be made accessible? Are you thinking of a reader, something like From Trinidad, maybe?
KR: I’ve thought of that. I’m hoping that someone will come up with the funding or the resources to reproduce the magazines and the journals that form the raw material of the book because most of what we have in the Archives are the only copies that exist and they’re in pretty bad stages of disrepair. In fact, some of them can’t even be touched.
RE: What is the real value of this work to you?
KR: It is a very valuable social record. One of the reasons why people have been so receptive to it - not just people interested in literature - is that the raw material is so rich in terms of anthropology, sociology and social and political development. It maps a process in the society that people are unaware of. Much research has been done of the 50s but this crop of journals that I’ve unearthed fills a kind of black hole. There has been a general impression that Indians were not writing at all until probably the 1940s. Also, one of the gaps in the socio-political history is the belief that in all that’s been happening in the development of Trinidad and Tobago, Indians weren’t participating. But what these records show is that they were very, very active and that there was so much collaboration among the groups that somehow the social analysis was ignored. Maybe this was not done deliberately, because they probably weren’t aware that the material existed, but I think it can present us with a more holistic view of the society.
RE: What do you think of V.S. Naipaul’s work?
KR: I think his work is brilliant but its impact probably suffers because of his personality...I don’t think anyone can question what he has achieved. I do think that the role of his father in his work has been largely underplayed.
RE: I agree with that. But what about Letters from Father to Son? Surely the publication of that book paid homage to Seepersad’s role in his writing?
KR: Yes, it paid homage but I wonder what is lost in the editing.
RE: You think it’s too sanitized?
KR: Yes...there is evidence of a wish-fulfillment on the part of his father but the rest is pretty tame.
RE: What about your personal view of Naipaul?
KR: Well, I don’t know him personally but I think that artists ought to be allowed their little eccentricities because I believe that it’s out of that they create - it’s an essential part of the whole creative process. But in a place like Trinidad, with all of the divisions, it’s easy to focus on the negatives instead of the positives.
RE: The disdain for Naipaul is enormous.
KR: I think it’s partly because there has been little understanding of the situations from which he writes...I take real issue with what the film of The Mystic Masseur has done to the book...the character’s evolution from Ganesh Ramsumair into G. Ramsay Muir is watered down...they try to make him into some kind of national hero.
RE: Instead of a mock national hero?
KR: Yes. Because it’s what Naipaul was suggesting - that all these people we create as national heroes are really mock heroes. There is a difference between who the artist is, what he’s trying to do, and what people are seeing of him.
Finding a Place is available at "A Different Booklist" (416) 538-0889.
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Headlines Issue Released July 2 2003
The memorable week that was
Caribbean literary artists take Toronto by storm
By Ramabai Espinet
Toronto — The past week in this Canadian city has been a charged and memorable one for Caribbean people. No matter how settled we seem to be here, the presence of our Caribbean selves within our Can-adian selves always provides an im-mense comfort.
 And that comfort has been present in extravagant quantities in the last little while, unusual in these pre-Caribana days when all the excitement is held at bay in anticipation of the midsummer festivities during the August long weekend. | ||
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