Transformative reading

September 22, 2010

C.L.R. James . . . it is appalling to learn that the C.L.R. James Library in Hackney (a borough of London) is going to be renamed the Dalston Library and Archives, after the neighborhood in which it is located. James was there when the library was christened in his honour in 1985. The authorities insist [...]

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R.I.P. Dawn Scott, 1951–2010

September 21, 2010

Dawn Scott working on A Cultural Object in 1985. Photograph courtesy the National Gallery of Jamaica Dawn Scott, Jamaican artist, died on Tuesday 21 September in Kingston. The National Gallery of Jamaica posted an obituary: Figurative batik was Dawn Scott’s main medium for some twenty years, culminating in her solo exhibition Nature Vive (1994) at [...]

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Ciudad grande

September 18, 2010

Lithograph from Puck magazine (1898), advocating US intervention in Cuba. Image courtesy the New-York Historical Society In New York throughout the nineteenth century, new immigrant communities were formed. The numbers were still small — in the early 1860s, we learn, about 1,300 Spaniards and Latin Americans lived in New York — but they grew. Poets, [...]

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ttff/10: The art of adaptation

September 18, 2010

Caryl Phillips. Photograph courtesy Georgia Popplewell/Caribbean Free Photo The trinidad+tobago film festival/2010 programme offers a number of workshops for aspiring filmmakers, including a session on adapting literary works for the screen, led by Caryl Phillips. The ttff provides this information: The practice of turning a work of literature into a film is almost as old [...]

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In his time

September 16, 2010

Wayne Brown (1944–2009). Photograph courtesy Mariel Brown The Trinidadian writer Wayne Brown — who died a year ago this week, on 15 September, 2009 — first came to widespread attention as a poet. His debut book, On the Coast (1972), won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and a Gregory Fellowship at the University of Leeds. [...]

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R.I.P. Jenny Alpha, 1910–2010

September 9, 2010

Jenny Alpha, Martiniquan singer and “grande dame de la culture créole,” died on Wednesday 8 September in Paris. The RFI website posted a short obituary: A familiar figure in French jazz clubs, Alpha crossed paths with actress Josephine Baker and musician Duke Ellington. After the Second World War, she campaigned for recognition of Creole culture, [...]

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Orange, indigo, pink, green

September 7, 2010

The current issue of the CRB — September 2010 — begins publication today (and will continue for the next seven weeks, with new reviews and other pieces appearing every Tuesday). We open with reviews of two recent books of fiction — Melissa Richards on Anton Nimblett’s short story collection Sections of an Orange, and Robert [...]

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Reading and writing + looking and listening

September 6, 2010

Probably the most iconic image from any Caribbean film: Jimmy Cliff as Ivanhoe Martin in The Harder They Come The CRB’s chief interest, as our name makes clear, is books. But it’s also clear that no art form is isolated or insulated from others, and literature is part of a creative continuum with visual and [...]

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“Always a good time to support young people”

September 3, 2010

I’ve known Lisa Allen-Agostini since we were both undergraduates at UWI-St Augustine — long enough ago that I have to squint and do some mental math to work out the year. The very first time we met, she was introduced to me as a writer. At a stage when most of our peers were still [...]

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Looking: Notting Hill Carnival 2010

September 2, 2010

Masquerader at Notting Hill Carnival 2010. Photograph by The Style PA, posted at Flickr under a Creative Commons license It’s certainly not a traditional burrokeet, but this fiery steed, photographed at Notting Hill Carnival last Monday, perhaps owes something to the idea. The photo is by Flickr user The Style PA, who not only posted [...]

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“Broader than Broadway”

August 31, 2010

Christian Campbell. Photograph by Sammy Rawal, courtesy Peepal Tree Press Today is Independence Day here in Trinidad and Tobago — parades, flags, fireworks — and today we also wrap up the current issue of the CRB with three last features. First, a portfolio of images from the painted wilde bussen — minibuses — of Paramaribo, [...]

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