May 22, 2007

Jamaica journal, part 1 Lazy weekend at Annie’s house in peaceful College Common, spent catching up on Jamaican art world gossip and browsing through Annie’s excellent, eclectic library–incl. a shelf of obscure old travellers’ accounts of South America, which she inherited from an eminent anthropologist. A journalist friend of hers dropped by on Sunday evening [...]

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May 21, 2007

Authorial stamp Talk about Pottermania. Royal Mail plans to issue a set of Harry Potter stamps–one for each book in the series–to coincide with the publication of the final Potter book on 17 July. I used to collect stamps when I was younger–I used to collect lots of things. I’m trying to recall which Caribbean [...]

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May 20, 2007

Sunday roundup – In the Guyana Chronicle, Ruel Johnson reviews The People’s Progressive Party of Guyana, 1950-1992: An Oral History. [N.B.: the Chronicle does not have a permanent online archive--this link is good for one week only.] – This week the Jamaica Gleaner’s Arts & Leisure section includes three short stories: “Pretty Death”, by Krys-Darcelle [...]

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May 20, 2007

A housekeeping note I am in Jamaica for a few days, dear readers–currently in Kingston, but heading down later in the week to Treasure Beach for the Calabash International Literary Festival (more about that later). As I dash around, trying to see as many CRB contributors and visit as many bookshops as possible, posting here [...]

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May 19, 2007

Horace Ove: Walking Proud Walking Proud (c. 1971) by the Trinidadian photographer and film-maker Horace Ove is one of five hundred photographs in How We Are: Photographing Britain, a new exhibition opening on 22 May at the Tate Britain (which also includes work by Jamaica-born Vanley Burke). “It takes a unique look at the journey [...]

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May 19, 2007

“Caribbean-Americans and the American Dream” To celebrate Caribbean-American Heritage Month, Geoffrey Philp is hosting a mini-essay competition, with the support of Akashic Books and Jamaicans.com. (I’m one of the judges, along with Preston Allen and Geoffrey himself). More information here.

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May 18, 2007

Stefan Falke: Moko Jumbies The Brooklyn-based German photographer Stefan Falke has been visiting Trinidad and photographing Carnival for well over a decade. In 2004 he published Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad, a beautifully designed and printed book documenting the young stilt-walkers of the Keylemanjahro Scool of Arts and Culture. (Read Keith Smith’s review [...]

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May 18, 2007

More bedside books It’s Friday, dear readers, which means we have another list of bedside books from a CRB contributor (I got the “bedside books” theme going myself, and last Friday Jonathan Ali shared his). Judy Raymond last reviewed V.S. Naipaul’s Magic Seeds in the November 2004 CRB, but we hope to have her writing [...]

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May 17, 2007

25-up The British bookshop chain Waterstone’s has just turned 25, and to celebrate this anniversary, they’ve released a list of “25 authors for the future”. “This is a list for the ordinary reader who goes into our shops, not for those who follow literary trends,” says the chairman of the selection panel, and the Granta [...]

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May 17, 2007

From the Caribbean Beat archive Many CRB readers, I suspect, are also readers of the CRB’s “sister” magazine, Caribbean Beat. Over the years, Beat has run hundreds of short book reviews and dozens of in-depth profiles of Caribbean writers, from eminences like Derek Walcott, Wilson Harris, and V.S. Naipaul, to the brightest talents of the [...]

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May 16, 2007

More Naipauliana It’s nearly a month since V.S. Naipaul left Trinidad, but his high profile, high-controversy visit is still a topic of avid conversation (and disagreement). Just yesterday, the Trinidad Guardian published a letter from Ferdie Ferreira headlined “Much contempt from Naipauls”, arguing that “in spite of our love and obsession with Sir Vidia, there [...]

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