Michael G. A. Lashley, Trinidad and Tobago’s ebullient Consul General in Toronto, is fond of saying: “It is vitally important that we be the ones to tell our stories.” So he is doubtless quite thrilled that this year two local authors have leapt boldly into the field of Non-Fiction and Reportage.
The very first photograph I ever took in Grenada, on my first visit there, many years ago, was from Fort George, looking down into the Carenage, an area I later came to know of as being locally called The Wharf.
This interesting and picturesque area, essentially a community in its own right – even these days, and much more so in times past – has been chronicled by my journalist colleague Lincoln Depradine in a fascinating book called WhiteFrock & Coals Dust, published by Mayaro Imprint.
“The “White Frock” in the title comes from the ecclesiastical garb worn by a local priest. The “Coals Dust” is from a building where charcoal was stored and sold, the dust marking everything it touched.
The priest became deeply involved in The Wharf community, and played a pivotal role in one of its proudest achievements, the creation and sustaining of the famed Angel Harps steelband.
Doing his firsthand research in Grenada, Toronto and New York, in rum shops and private homes, at fetes and at gatherings of old friends, Depradine has told the story of The Wharf and its denizens, in a fascinating way.
I suspect that this is almost the hardest kind of book to write, as virtually all the material is gathered from oral – rather than written – sources, and people’s memories, with the best will in the world, are fallible.
The author will inevitably face criticism, as with: “That’s wrong, man, it didn’t go so, you should have talked to me”…“You left so-and-so out of the story”…etc., etc. Even with Depradine’s care in crosschecking his sources – and to have two for almost every point – there will inevitably be differences, which will become points for argument, discussion and ole talk.
White Frock & Coals Dust is the story of The Wharf and its people, and it is also their – informal – history. Depradine illustrates it with photographs of work and play, giving visual life to the kaleidoscope of names and personal histories of those who populate his book.
At times I was reminded of V.S. Naipaul’s said-to-have-been-based-on-fact book Miguel Street, about the inhabitants of a mythical street in Port of Spain. Naipaul, however, was writing Fiction, while Depradine is writing Non-Fiction – and doing so, it may be added, very elegantly indeed.
Grenadians – especially those from the capital city – will doubtless remember or recognize many of the characters, some of whom were widely known beyond the environs of The Wharf.
Yet it is not necessary to be Grenadian to enjoy “meeting” them through Depradine’s prose, and many readers, especially those who grew up in definable urban communities in cities, or in country villages, will find much that is familiar to entertain them.
Moreover, Depradine’s scrupulous attention to detail makes his book almost a template for how community history can be gathered and presented.
Antigua-born Althea Prince, sociologist, poet, novelist, essayist, and Professor at Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, has also thrown her hat into the reportorial ring.
Already the author of a novel, Loving This Man, a collection of short stories, Ladies of the Night, and a collection of essays entitled Being Black, her latest venture is called The Politics of Black Women’s Hair.
In October, African-American comedian and actor Chris Rock brought out a documentary film called “Good Hair,” a relatively light-hearted look at the billion dollar “industry” which is Black women’s hair. Told in his inimitable and irreverent manner, it had been sparked by a question from his daughter: “Why don’t I have ‘Good’ hair, Daddy?”
There have been several films on aspects of Black women’s hair, and some of them won awards at minor film festivals, so Rock was stepping into an area where there was already a body of similarly-themed work.
Consequently, in these seize-the-opportunity litigious times, I wasn’t very surprised when a plagiarism and copyright claim – demanding “no less than $5 million” in damages – was lodged by an earlier filmmaker.
Prince’s The Politics of Black Women’s Hair had its formal launch at an entertaining lecture-cum-party at the University of Toronto’s New College. Itah Sadu was the M.C. and there were presentations by Prince’s daughter, the poet Mansa Trotman, and friend, Dr. Janis Prince Innis – both of whom have work published in the book.
Providing “atmosphere” for the speakers, to one side of the stage, stylist Deneka was quietly working on the hair of Sadu’s daughter, Sojourner San Vicente.
Prince’s essays are drawn from interviews and less formal conversations with Black women from Canada, the Caribbean, the United States and England, and she charts Black women’s journeys with their hair.
She looks at how hair is perceived, judged, and graded on the yardstick of mainstream society’s standards of beauty…at hair as a fashion statement…at hair as a political statement…and, drawing from her life, as the mother of a daughter, suggests that hair provides a positive bonding experience.
Prince tells me that she had more or less completed her book when – while it was “in production” – Black hair suddenly “became an issue.”
Among other things, “Michelle Obama ‘happened’,” she said. “So I added a chapter on people’s response to her hair.” There is a lot of serious stuff in the book – along with some philosophy – and the author says she is “very concerned about the children.”
The question Rock’s daughter asked her father nags at the consciousness of Price the Sociologist, and she wonders aloud if Barack and Michelle Obama’s daughters will ask the same question.
Note:
“Caribbean People’’ is a regular feature of Caribbean Camera, a weekly newspaper published in Toronto. The following is the feature published in the June 17 edition of the paper
Prince explains that The Politics of Black Women’s Hair, published by Insomniac Press, “takes one on a socio-cultural journey” – but it is by no means “a litany of woe.”