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>>>BOOK NEWS

Two writers from Jamaica and one writer from Trinidad and Tobago shortlisted for the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature [pics: bocas shortlist across top of story]

From a longlist of 10 titles in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, the judges of the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature have chosen a winning book in each genre category. Kei Miller’s Writing Down the Vision was chosen from the non-fiction list, and fellow Jamaican Lorna Goodison’s Oracabessa was selected from the poetry category. Trinidadian Robert Antoni’s As Flies to Whatless Boys was chosen from the fiction list.

They will vie for the US$10,000 overall award, sponsored by One Caribbean Media, parent company of the Trinidad Express and TV6.

Kei Miller’s Writing Down the Vision (Peepal Tree Press) is a collection of essays that present a range of experiences – personal and public – which the writer uses to articulate his vision and his understanding of the realities of life in Jamaica and the Caribbean. The judges noted, “Miller is an original thinker, a writer who knows his own mind and is wary of orthodoxies. He is uncompromising and honest in his interrogation of issues and his experiences of the worlds he inhabits, cutting through the normalcy to reveal the realities of these worlds.”

Lorna Goodison’s Oracabessa (Carcanet Press) is a book of risky journeys, mappings, and re-mappings through Spain, Portugal, Canada, and her homeland of Jamaica, as the poet navigates place, history, and imagination. According to the judges, “In Oracabessa the distinctive voice of Lorna Goodison – an elegant, captivating fusion of international English and Jamaican Creole – presents segments of autobiography as a series of travels. Goodison’s persuasive art is a many-sided celebration of spiritual search.”

Robert Antoni’s novel As Flies to Whatless Boys (Akashic Books) is accented with West Indian cadence and captivating humour. It provides an unforgettable glimpse into 19th-century Trinidad. The judges added: “With mischief, ingenuity, and linguistic verve, Antoni reinvents the idea of the region’s islands as zones of perilous fantasy, where dreams come to grief but still make history.”

The winner of the overall OCM Bocas Prize will be announced on Saturday, April 26, as part of the fourth annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest. The final cross-genre judging panel, headed by the celebrated Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, will include poet and academic Mervyn Morris, writer and academic Hazel Simmons-McDonald, literary critic and academic Ken Ramchand, and Marjorie Thorpe as representative of the Prize administrators.

The 2013 prize was won by Monique Roffey for her novel Archipelago. The 2012 prize was won by Trinidadian Earl Lovelace for his novel Is Just a Movie. Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott was winner of the inaugural 2011 prize for his poetry collection White Egrets.

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Writer credits: Sharon Leach

Bookshelf:

>>>SPOTLIGHT

As Flies to Whatless Boys by Robert Antoni (Akashic Books, 2013) [2 pics: flies, antoni]

As Flies to Whatless Boys was last week announced as one of the three finalists for the 2014 Bocas Literary Prize. It beat two other longlisted books in the fiction category, Claire of the Sea Light by Haitian Edwidge Danticat and Gloria by Jamaican Kerry Young. Today, we put the spotlight on this work.

According to Earl Lovelace, the author of Is Just a Movie, the 2012 winner of the OCM Bocas Literary Prize, “As Flies to Whatless Boys is an inventive, witty, comic romance that is as much about history and adventure as it is about language. With virtuosic attention to language, Robert Antoni delightfully explores the written word in all its forms – as letters, as e-mails, as reportage, as narration, as archives – to tell stories, to paint characters, to demonstrate the range and integrity of English and its dialects, and to edge us closer to ourselves as equally human beings.”

Plot summary:

In 1845 London, an engineer, philosopher, philanthropist, and bold-faced charlatan, John Adolphus Etzler, has invented machines that he thinks will transform the division of labour and free all men. He forms a collective called the Tropical Emigration Society (TES), and recruits a variety of London citizens to take his machines and his misguided ideas to form a proto-socialist, utopian community in the British colony of Trinidad.

Among his recruits is a young boy (and the book’s narrator) named Willy, who falls head-over-heels for the enthralling and wise Marguerite Whitechurch. Coming from the gentry, Marguerite is a world away from Willy’s labouring class. As the voyage continues, and their love for one another strengthens, Willy and Marguerite prove themselves to be true socialists, their actions and adventures standing in stark contrast to Etzler’s disconnected theories.

This tragic historical novel, accented with West Indian cadence and captivating humour, provides an unforgettable glimpse into 19th-century Trinidad & Tobago.

About the author:

Trinidadian-American Robert Antoni, while studying at Duke University, before he turned 21, published his first story, Self-Indulgence. Before the year ended, he published another story. Since then, he has published five novels and numerous short stories. Antoni holds a Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature from the University of Iowa. He is also the co-founder of the famous Master of Fine Arts programme at the University of Miami. He is the recipient of many awards, including the prestigious Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for his first novel Divina Trace.

His other works include Papee Vince Tells of Magdalene and Barto, Two-Head Fred and Tree-Foot Frieda, Dimanche Gras, Carnival and My Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales.

Robert Antoni will be at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, April 23 to 27, before participating in the 2014 Calabash Literary Festival taking place May 30 to June 1 at Jake’s in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth.

>>>COMPETITIONS, CONTESTS, etc

Call for submissions

A new Caribbean anthology, to be published by In Our Words Inc, a Canadian publishing company, is looking for submissions featuring subject matter reflecting Caribbean content. Submission guidelines: prose and poetry, prose, 2,500-5,000 words; five poems. No fee to submit and no remuneration. Upon publication, writers will receive a free copy of the anthology. Deadline to submit is August 31, 2014. Please e-mail submissions or queries to peta-gayenash1@gmail.com.

>>>BOOK LAUNCH

Esther Figueroa to launch Limbo at UWI, Mona today [pic: limbo]

The Department of Literatures in English will host the launch of Esther Figueroa’s novel, Limbo, today, Sunday, April 6, 2014 at the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (N1), the Faculty of Humanities and Education, UWI, Mona, at 11:00 am.

Figueroa is an award-winning independent filmmaker known for such films as Jamaica for Sale (2008/9), Massa God Fish Can Done (2009) and Cockpit Country is Our Home (2007). Her first published novel, Limbo is an environmental novel that takes a sharp, witty and insightful look at Jamaica’s environmental crisis within the frame of the devastating impact of the tourist industry on the island’s natural resources. The novel’s heroine, Flora, a Jamaican scientist, must make a difficult choice between saving her tiny environmental organisation and the country’s resources or risk losing her job and perhaps her life in the process of standing up for what she really believes. The novel is a humorous look at Flora’s struggle to achieve change while making peace with herself and her island.

Limbo has received rave reviews since its publication on March 4, 2014 by Arcade Publishing. Patricia Powell hails the novel as “brave and witty… a landmark work of extraordinary importance.” Pamela Mordecai observes: “Limbo is a courageous, audacious, indeed reckless work.” Olive Senior adds that the novel “deftly navigates between steamy romance, backdoor deals and dangerous plunges into the inferno of Jamaica’s environmental disasters.”

The launch talk will be delivered by Professor Carolyn Cooper, professor in Literary and Cultural Studies in the department. The public is invited.

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New In Books: [pic: breaking cycle]

New sequel seeks greater readership

Jamaican author Pamela Marshall returns with a sequel to her hugely popular 2011 debut novel Barrel Child, an absorbing tale that explores what happens when mothers are forced to emigrate in search of economic opportunities to provide better lives for their children and the ripple effects this ‘barrel love’ have on the children who are left behind. Breaking the Cycle: A Barrel Child Story picks up years later with Will and Sara, who have traversed the obstacles of young love and survived it. They’ve set aside the immaturity of their teenage romance and have grown to learn that love takes conscious effort to endure. Or have they? Now settled into a life together, the happy home they have built is being threatened. Is the bond Will and Sara have shared since they were children in Jamaica strong enough?

Bookends takes a sneak peek inside Breaking the Cycle: A Barrel Child Story.

Excerpt

Sara Lowe – May 2001

Anniversary Gift

My 34th birthday was approaching fast, and I had to find a way to come clean to Will. I could not allow our 10th wedding anniversary, two days before my birthday, to pass without getting this off my chest. But as I contemplated how to tell him, my thoughts drifted to our children. My babies were no longer babies.

Ruth, my headstrong first-born, had graduated from high school with honours and would soon be attending Hudson University on an academic scholarship. People always commented on how alike we were, not just in looks but in our thinking. She was talkative, quick-witted and refused to let any obstacles or naysayers stand between her and what she wanted from life.

This, of course, also meant we were bound to butt heads every now and then – both of us certain in our convictions and not afraid to say so. Still, we always had respect for each other, and our relationship never came close to being as combative as the relationship I had with my mother those first months I spent with her in New York when I was 18.

Ruth had my tall, skinny frame, which still managed to boast some impressive curves. Once she hit her teen years, the mall became my enemy with all its miniskirts, low-cut tops and ogling boys who seemed to fixate on my daughter. Part of me worried, for a long time, that she would take the same path I did and end up a teenage mother.

I was determined to break the cycle with her, as my mother had also given birth at far too young an age. Thankfully, all my hard work paid off. My beautiful girl was 17 and would be going to college without any little ones to tie her down. It wasn’t easy getting her there. In fact, it was terrifying sometimes, knowing how easy it would be for her to make all the same mistakes I did. She got plenty mad at me, too, and told me more than once that I was smothering her. We had some big fights, but I kept my girl safe.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved all of my children – Ruth, Andrew and the twins Esther and John. But I became a mother at 16. I made the best of it, finishing high school, graduating from college and starting a career in teaching, but it was hard on me and the children. Having a child didn’t instantly cure immaturity, and I made some choices that weren’t the wisest. My path was harder and more complicated than that of my peers. It granted me amazing children, but I didn’t want my children travelling that same path. I wanted their lives to be better, easier.

Andrew was 13, and the twins would turn 10 at the end of the year. I had broken another cycle with them as well. They were never barrel children.

Barrel children were those left behind when their mothers went to America in search of better-paying work in order to make enough money to provide a better life for them.

Unfortunately, years usually passed before these mothers could get their green cards and afford to bring their children from Jamaica. To compensate for their absence, the mothers sent barrels at least twice a year, especially during Easter and Christmas, filled with fashionable clothes, shoes, toys and electronics to express their love.

My mother Lea was one of those women. She took a job in New York and left me with my Aunt Adda and Uncle John two months before my fifth birthday. I didn’t see her again until I was 18.

Ruth was also a barrel child, a regret I still carry. When I left Jamaica to join my mother in America, Ruth was two. My mother did not know I had a child of my own already. I was so ashamed that I’d gotten pregnant so young, and Aunt Adda, who felt that she was to blame, never told my mother either. But it was childish of me to keep a secret that separated me from my daughter for so long. Although a year was nothing compared to the 14 years that I went without my mother, it was more than any child should have to endure.

My husband Will was also a barrel child. We grew up on the same cul-de-sac in Jamaica, just two houses down from each other. Being barrel children, with mothers who thought designer labels could make up for their absences, brought us closer together as kids, but it also made it harder for us to make a relationship work as young adults.

I had to get over a lot of feelings of resentment and abandonment toward my mother, and even toward Will, who left Jamaica to reunite with his mother in New York while I was pregnant with Ruth. Part of me knew he had no choice in the matter as we were teenagers at the time, but my subconscious held that against him for a long time.

Will struggled with his own issues as well, namely commitment. I have no doubt that being left behind by his mother when he was six years old and never meeting his father played into that.

But against the odds, we made it through. We had a beautiful home, a spacious five-bedroom apartment on the first floor of the three-story brownstone Will’s mother Beverly owned in Brooklyn. A few months after the twins were born, she allowed us to make renovations, converting the duplex into one large apartment after her other tenants moved out. We had four beautiful children. We had close friends and family we adored. Will had expanded his pharmacy into a chain with several stores around New York City. And we had a great marriage… for a while.

I did not know how Will would take it when I told him that I wanted a divorce. It certainly wouldn’t be the anniversary gift he was expecting.

Breaking The Cycle: A Barrel Child Story by Pamela Marshall, printed here by the author’s permission.

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Bookends serial:

Love Wounds [pic: love wounds]

Chapter 12

Martin, light of my life. Funny how I could now permit myself to even think about him. To admit how much I’d loved him. I guess my new therapist was right: I had to go through the pain to get over it. Now that I could call his name again, it strangely didn’t even hurt anymore. We met one night on a lonely road. I’d had a flat tyre. A cliché? Sure. But that’s how life often is, I’ve discovered. I was returning home from a day spent screwing the man I’d been seeing at the time, an eligible bachelor old enough to be my father, at his weekend villa in the hills. A day that had started off bursting with hope and potential, but which had inexplicably gone sideways when another woman he’d apparently also been seeing appeared there and brought an abrupt ending to the relationship.

I pulled over onto the side of the road and was desperately trying to dial his number when my cell phone died. This happened in the days before I had auto assist, and the thought of asking for help from the man who’d spurred my earlier mortification made me sick to my stomach. So when Martin had driven up in his truck offering assistance I quickly accepted it. Standing beside him, I saw how, as he knelt there, his eyes kept wandering over my ringed, French-pedicured toes in the high heels I was wearing, travelling up my legs, up, up, as far up my mini-dress as he could see. His shoulders were muscular and broad and his muscles flexed appealingly under his tight-fitting wife beater as he made light the task of changing the tyre.

But he wasn’t my type. He was cute, of course, and I kept thinking that his face was extremely familiar. But where would I have known him from? He wasn’t a professional man, the kind of man I gravitated towards, in other words. The man whose villa I’d just left was a star in the banking world. He’d never been married, but it was known he was a Casanova who was extremely generous with the women he was involved with. I’d been young and foolish and vain enough to believe I was the woman he’d been waiting for all of his life: the arrogance of youth. That evening I’d discovered I wasn’t. Martin, on the other hand, wore his hair in cornrows, making it difficult for me to believe he was even gainfully employed, even though his vehicle was tricked-out. His English, too, was spotty, which was a problem.

Drugs, I assumed.

When he was through he took my phone and put his number in it. I had no intention of calling it, naturally. Only, I did. Later that night as I lay in bed. I don’t know, perhaps I was bored. Or perhaps I was trying to process the unexpected break-up of that past evening, which, strangely, had already begun to feel like an amnesiac dream. I’d been with the man for almost six months. I couldn’t honestly say that I was in love with him; there was something to be said, I felt, for a grown-up relationship that had its roots in friendship and respect. The fact that he could still have unassisted erections was an added bonus. But he’d disrespected me by opening me up to scandal. On the contrary, there was something almost tender about the way Martin respectfully did not try to aggressively impose himself on me, as other men would have in that situation, and went to great pains to not make me feel threatened by him, there on that lonely, dark road. But the number rang out before going to voice mail. And I imagined he was in some woman’s bed ignoring the call. At about one in the morning I was awakened by my phone; it was him.

Two days later we went on our first date. I knew at once, when Martin arrived at my door, all fine-smelling and handsome in his close-fitting Stafford dress pants, burgundy paisley silk shirt and hand-woven Cole leather slip-ons straight from the pages of the season’s menswear magazines, that I’d be going to bed with him that night. From our many hours-long conversation two nights before, I’d found out that he was in fact not a drug dealer; that he was actually a former national football player who’d gone on to play in a foreign league before returning home, a few years before, as a result of being sidelined by injury.

He took me to a newly opened Vietnamese restaurant in Barbican. A Taste of Hanoi was a renovated old split-level house with hardwood floors and decorated with earthy components like wood and stone, silky sensuous fabrics of nutmeg-brown and gauzy saffron. Because of who he was, Martin didn’t require a reservation. And so we sat on the first level of the main dining area, in a plush U-shaped booth of the VIP section with a view of the far end of the room, where there was a brilliantly-lit glassed-in wine cellar at the back of the lounge and barroom. Around us, Eastern music had played softly – romantic sounding sitars that had an otherworldly vibe. A small breeze had wafted through multiple doors that all opened onto a softly-lit patio, where more diners ate.

Halfway through the muc rang muoi, Martin slid up close to me and, using a chopstick to move my hair, inhaled my Chanel No 5. “You good?” he asked.

Martin wasn’t a great intellect; two-word sentences were normal for him, but he was charming and attentive. After the other men I’d been involved with in the past, it was great to simply just go with the flow. Intellectual stimulation, I told myself, was overrated. Martin represented a shift in the paradigm. At the very least, he was an anthropological experiment I would be over with, in a short while.

I closed my eyes and answered with two words of my own. “I’m good.”

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK