Lady Mary Beckles (left) with her husband Professor Sir Hilary Beckles (2nd right), vice chancellor of The University of the West Indies; and relatives, attorney-at-law Luke and his mom Sandra Minott Phillips, QC, at the Festschrift launch of Interrogating Justices, at The UWI, Mona, on February 15. Festschrift is defined by the Collins dictionary as a collection of essays or learned papers contributed by a number of people to honour an eminent scholar, especially a colleague, and those in attendance for Interrogating Injustices did indeed enjoy a “feast of writing” (the German translation of Fest and Schrift).

At the launch of the book edited by The UWI’s Professor Verene Shepherd, Dr Henderson D Carter and Dr Ahmed N Reid, and published by Ian Randle Publishers, pro-vice chancellor and principal of The University of the UWI Professor Densil Williams praised Sir Hilary as “a giant leader of The UWI”.

Professor Williams said that the Festschrift was “to celebrate an academic administrator par excellence, an advocate by devotion, and one of the rare breed of true intellectuals who is tenanting with us on Mother Earth.” He said that in the book “colleagues near and far not only memorialised Sir Hilary’s work, but have placed the man in his rightful intellectual and philosophical place”.