What bothers me is that the region does not honour its own. Have Lorna Goodison, or Zee Edgell, or Michelle Cliff, or Sylvia Wynter, or Merle Hodge to take four names more or less at random been honoured by their states? I can recall asking what the Jamaican state would do for John Hearne, and being told that the Musgrave Medal was the appropriate honour in such cases.

We need to do more to honour our writers and artists publicly. We have honours systems, what are they for if not to indicate that the people, through their representatives, believe that certain persons are worthy of honour?

Besides, it’s long past time that the Barbadian state honoured George Lamming (to take one example, not at all at random).