Posts tagged as:

jamaica

Calabash farewell

by Nicholas Laughlin on January 18, 2011

The 2007 Calabash International Literary Festival winds down with a reggae jam session. Photograph by Georgia Popplewell/Caribbean Free Photo Between its founding in 2000 and its tenth anniversary in 2010, the Calabash International Literary Festival — based in Treasure Beach, on the south coast of Jamaica — grew into one of the major events on [...]

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’im bounce right back

by Nicholas Laughlin on December 2, 2010

Earlier this week, the CRB published F.S.J. Ledgister’s review of Edward Seaga’s two-volume political memoir, My Life and Leadership, plus historian Patrick E. Bryan’s monograph Edward Seaga and the Challenges of Modern Jamaica. Seaga, prime minister of Jamaica from 1980 to 1989 and leader of the opposition for a cumulative two decades, was the last [...]

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R.I.P. Gregory Isaacs, 1951–2010

by Nicholas Laughlin on October 25, 2010

Gregory Isaacs, Jamaican reggae singer, died this morning in London (as reported by the BBC and other media). Nicknamed “Cool Ruler”, Isaacs was once described as “the most exquisite vocalist in reggae, his pliable baritone equally at ease with silken ballads and slinky dance grooves.” His best known song is the title track from his [...]

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R.I.P. Dawn Scott, 1951–2010

by Nicholas Laughlin on 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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In his time

by Nicholas Laughlin on 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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“A lot of fans, not so many friends”

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 21, 2010

Lady Saw BLVR: Do you separate from the Lady Saw people see in the dancehall when you’re not onstage? LS: You know, a friend of mine recently told me how she saw me onstage one night, and I came down off the stage, and a man said something to me. And I told him: “Lady [...]

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R.I.P. Seya Parboosingh, 1925–2010

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 20, 2010

Sharing at the Table (1999), by Seya Parboosingh. Image courtesy the National Gallery of Jamaica Seya Parboosingh, American-born artist living in Jamaica since 1958, died on Friday 13 August in Kingston. The National Gallery of Jamaica blog published a short obituary: The painter and poet Seya Parboosingh, née Samila Joseph, was born in 1925, in [...]

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“The dream is never too much to bear”

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 17, 2010

Marcus Garvey. Photograph courtesy Oxford University Press As I mentioned in the previous post, today is V.S. Naipaul’s birthday — which he shares, by [insert preferred adjective] coincidence, with Marcus Garvey. Geoffrey Philp is celebrating the latter over at his blog, with a poem (“Marcus, the dream is never too much to bear”) and a [...]

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The unity is submarine

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 11, 2010

Government Cut, Miami. Photograph by Emilio Labrador, posted at Flickr under a Creative Commons license What is the Caribbean? is not an unanswerable question. But there isn’t — will never be — a single, definitive answer that can encompass the complications of the geographic region named for the Caribs of half a millennium ago, its [...]

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“The soul of positivity”

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 4, 2010

Portrait of Bob Marley on a t-shirt, Amsterdam; photograph by mdemon, posted at Flickr under a Creative Commons license You posit the theory that Peter Tosh was just as talented as Bob, but for various reasons would never achieve the kind of overall popularity he did. What was it about Marley that has made him [...]

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The future in the present

by Nicholas Laughlin on August 3, 2010

Enthroned Madonna (2010), by Marvin Bartley; digital print on archival paper; 109.2 x 241.3 cm. Image courtesy the National Gallery of Jamaica Regular Antilles readers may remember that nearly two months ago we posted a few images from and links to the Young Talent V exhibition at the National Gallery of Jamaica. The Young Talent [...]

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