Toronto, September 23, 2009 – An appeal has been made for more authorship of books from Caribbean writers, retailing the stories of the region.
“Our primary responsibility to ourselves is to ensure that our side of our story is told by us,’’ Trinidad and Tobago diplomat Michael Lashley told a group of Caribbean nationals at the Grenada Consulate General in Toronto Tuesday evening.
They had gathered at the consulate for the Toronto launch of “White Frock & Coals Dust: The Story of A Community Called The Wharf.’’ It was the third in a series of planned book launches, following similar events in Grenada on August 6 and in New York on September 3.
“White Frock & Coals Dust,’’ written by Toronto-based Grenadian journalist Lincoln Toro Depradine, is primarily the story of ordinary men and women who gave meaning to their lives through sports, culture and community gatherings. The main setting of the book is the Carenage community in the Grenadian capital, St. George’s.
Several speakers at the Toronto launch embraced the book as being more than just Grenadian literature.
“This is not a Grenadian story. This is our story,’’ said Lashley, Consul General for Trinidad & Tobago in Toronto. “Once somebody has written a book, and once the person comes from the Caribbean, we have a responsibility not only to support the book but also to celebrate the fact that the book has become a reality.’’
Lashley, a former Trinidad teacher, said the books looks at a “range of our stories’’ – social, political and cultural. “But embedded there,’’ he added, “are the linkages between all those various aspects of our existence. And it is that subtext that you feel as you read through something to which you can relate.’’
The Caribbean similarity was also echoed by Jamaican-Canadian concert promoter Allan Jones, who recently visited Grenada.
“In the Caribbean, we are all similar in terms of lifestyle and vibes and day-to-day experiences,’’ Jones told the audience that included Grenada’s Consul General Jenny Gumbs and former Consul General Conrad Gibbs.
“The book represents the situation in many similar spots in the Caribbean,’’ Jones said. “I can attest to Wharf areas in Jamaica, where I was born, with the same attitudes and bravado expressed by inhabitants of the Wharf and so eloquently presented by Lincoln in his book.’’
College instructor and journalist Jules Elder, who was born in Tobago, said committing stories to paper provides an opportunity for Caribbean nationals to leave a legacy “so that our children and neighbours could read and understand that we have a history that’s rich, that’s meaningful, that’s exciting and that’s educational.’’
Cultural historian and lawyer Caldwell Taylor, a former Grenada ambassador to the United Nations, said “White Frock & Coals Dust’’ is the continuation of the Caribbean literary tradition and movement, which he traces to 1931 with the founding in Trinidad “The Beacon’’ magazine.
One of the magazine’s founders, Alfred Mendes, escaped to Grenada to avoid being arrested and charged by the colonial authorities for an article written by him and published the Trinidad Guardian newspaper. Mendes authored a 1934 book titled, “Pitch Lake.’’
“It is very likely that Mendes wrote the first passages of the first novel of the movement, Pitch Lake, in Grenada,’’ said Taylor.
Depradine’s book, he said, “expresses our point of view in an accent of speech that is ours. The second important thing for me about the book is that it ennobles ordinary people and their day-to-day miracles.’’
Decades after “The Beacon’’ was founded, “after the start of West Indian literature, we have a book that celebrates people in the street,’’ Taylor said.
