LiTTscapes reading to feature at Moray House this week — Guyana Times

LiTTscapes reading to feature at Moray House this week — Guyana Times

LiTTscapes reading to feature at Moray House this week

February 11, 2013 By admin

The Guyana Prize for Literature, in association with the Moray House Trust and the Culture Ministry, will host readings from the book LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago by Dr Kris Rampersad.

Dr Kris Rampersad will be reading from her book LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction at Moray House this week

The event, LiTTribute II – LiTTurgy to the Mainland, will be held on February 15, at Moray House, the historic heritage building located at Camp and Quamina streets, Georgetown.

It will feature dramatised readings, performances and tributes to Caribbean writers by Rampersad, the Guyana Theatre Guild,  and other icons.  LiTTurgy to the Mainland follows the recent LiTTribute to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, hosted by the First Lady of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards and Dr Rampersad in September 2012 at the 19th century Knowsley Building in Trinidad’s capital and the August 2012 launch of LiTTscapes at White Hall – one of Trinidad and Tobago’s Magnificent Seven buildings. Both were part of the commemorative 50th anniversary of independence celebrations of Trinidad and Tobago in 2012.

 “I am thrilled that the Guyana Prize for Literature and the Moray House Trust have initiated this as it meshes with the vision and energies that forged LiTTscapes to connect the Caribbean and stimulate appreciation of heritage and culture through literary and related arts,” said Dr Rampersad. “LiTTurgy to the Mainland will emphasise the umbilical links our creative writers have long recognised between the continent and our islands. These links predate colonialism by eons and the involvement of these institutions in Guyana underscores the shared vision for the region among our peoples and meshes with our endeavours through LiTTscapes, LiTTributes, LiTTevents, and LiTTours as we work together with all partners to enhance appreciation for the arts and strengthen our regional identity.”

Dr Rampersad, who is a journalist and educator on Caribbean culture and heritage, said: “We will do so by projecting representations and reach of the oral and literary arts through readings and performances, as well as by highlighting the importance of appreciation of our built, natural and cultural heritage of Guyana as the Moray House, and the Guyana Prize represent.”

LiTTscapes has been acclaimed as a groundbreaking encyclopaedic yet coffee-table style compendium of the lifestyles, landscapes, architecture, cultures, festivals, and institutions of Trinidad and Tobago as represented in more than 100 fictional works by some 60 writers.  It is available at local bookshops

Development agenda

For more than two decades, Dr Rampersad has been actively involved in analysing, assessing, critiquing, and defining the development agenda for Caribbean societies.  She holds a PhD in literatures from the University of the West Indies and a diploma in mass communication from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication at the Jawarharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. She also completed fellowships as a professional fellow of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in the UK, at Wolfson College and Cambridge University, and the Foreign Press Centre of Japan. She has participated in numerous professional development seminars, courses and workshops on management, journalism, communications and media, gender, culture, economics, agriculture, education, civic participation, among others.

She is a media, culture and literary consultant; print and television journalist; editor; producer; and researcher, author and lecturer on development issues of culture, media, literature and gender of the Caribbean at international, regional and national levels. Dr Rampersad is also the author of Through the Political Glass Ceiling – Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female Kamala Persad-Bissessar and Finding A Place.

LiTTribute II – LiTTurgy to the Mainland evokes and pays tribute to the primordial connections between the American continent and the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.  LiTTributes are specially produced events that highlight the linkages between the natural, physical, built and cultural landscapes and heritage and synergies between them in print, music, dance, drama, art, cuisine and other lifestyle, graphic and other audio-visual forms of expressions.