The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival is a celebration of culture as expressed through the pen of the storyteller and the voice of the poet. It is a platform designed to support and facilitate vibrant conversations about Caribbean identity via a series of readings of classic and contemporary stories, workshops, events and talks through an annual capstone festival and a developing plan for year-long programming.
Thursday 10 September 2020
Paule Marshall: The Caribbean Giant
2-3.15pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Elizabeth Nunez
Featuring: Patricia Powell (JA and Merle Collins (GD)
This panel celebrates the life and work of the Caribbean American literary giant Paule Marshall. The panelists will be Elizabeth Nunez, Merle Collins and Patricia Powell. These award-winning Caribbean-American writers will fondly remember and discuss their favorite Paule Marshall novel and the influence of the “Poets in the Kitchen,” as Marshall called the women who gathered in her mother’s Bed Stuy brownstone. As they hold court, each panelist will make the case why the works of this literary icon rightfully belong to the Caribbean-American, and, indeed, the American literary canon, and therefore should be required reading.
Reimagining Worlds: Exploring 'Happily Ever After' in Caribbean Fiction
6-7.30pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Patrice Grell Yursik
Featuring: Ifeona Fulani (JA), Lisa Allen Agostini (TT) and more.
Traditional fairy tales begin with "Once upon a time" and generally end with the protagonists living "happily ever after." In Caribbean literature, this relatable concept takes on a different meaning. In this panel, we will interrogate the ways this prevalent trope in the literature of the colonizer is interpreted through our lens. Do Caribbean literary characters get to have a happily ever after? How is it earned? If the concept of 'happily ever after' can be considered a secure, permanent future of increasingly beneficial outcomes for the protagonist and his/her successors, does that indicate a life luxury that comes with privilege and dominance? As we tell the stories of the suppressed, does it mean that we have to adjust the parameters for that in Caribbean literature?
Friday 11 September 2020
Laureates of the Caribbean
7-9pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Roger Bonair Agard
Featuring: Vladimir Lucien (LC), Christian Campbell (BS), Shivanee Ramlochan (TT), Merle Collins (GD), John Robert Lee (LC), Lauren Alleyne (TT) and many more.
LOC is the BCLF's ode to the oral tradition and storyteller of the Caribbean. This tradition was heavily influenced and shaped by the indigenous folk-stories of each island, the waves of immigration, indentured labor, and West African culture deposited by the millions of slaves captured and forced to live and work in the colonies during the transatlantic slave trade. It is also a tradition that was held aloft by the Elder, Kamau Brathwaite - father of postcolonial literature. He aimed to create a distinctly Caribbean form of poetry to celebrate our identity, our language and voices. Kamau contended that our language was not broken or deficient and rejected the pejorative description of 'dialect'. He insisted that what we speak is ‘nation language’, immeasurable by pentameter and wanting nothing. This year we offer our highest commendation to one of our finest griots. Some of today’s finest Caribbean storytellers and poets will gather to tell their own stories, offer tributes and express gratitude - in verse or dub - and keep the eternal flames of our identity and ‘nation language‘ burning.
Saturday 12 September 2020
Pelau Protocols
3-4.30pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Hosts: Roger Bonair Agard and Kevin Adonis Browne
Pelau. Rice and Peas. Cook up. Peas and rice. Every Caribbean nation has some version of such a dish enshrined as at least one of its national dishes. The combination of peas and rice is diasporic in the tropics, and perhaps even more consistently between the equator and the 15th parallel. What does it symbolize about all we've adapted and what we've lost. And how might we build an understanding of (Black) Caribbean masculinity and a fight to revolutionize it – which is also to reclaim its divine feminine. This talk features Caribbean men in the encounter, confront, and de/reconstruction of their masculinity; and how we hold one another in that transformational journey of justice, in a way that lets us bring us all on that evolutionary journey.
I Belong to the House of Music: The Pandemic Episode
7-9pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Artillah Springer
Featuring: Shivanee Ramlochan (TT) and others
A music-centred interview in which artists discuss their work and favourite pieces of music. The Caribbean is no stranger to upheaval. Diseases, natural and human disasters, genocide, homicide and lately, ecocide are the signposts along this region's journey ever since a violent encounter of two worlds set us on a path of convergence, The Caribbean is also a road map for recovery. How we respond and resist, combat and triumph paralyzing obstacles may very well point modern society in the direction of innovation leading to survival. In many ways, we have become the archetype for resiliency and cure. In his event, we draw on the poetry, musings, insight and craft of writers who have bravely and boldly confronted loss and deprivation. Together, they will share the music, the sounds, the verses and the stories that inspire their creative consciousness which hopefully perhaps contain a prescription for healing.
Sunday 13 September 2020
Of Salt, Shapeshifters and Spirits: Folklore and Magic in Caribbean Literature & Society
1-2.30pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Karen Lord
Featuring: Breanne Mc Ivor (TT), Monique Roffey (TT) and others
"Folklore is the bedrock of Caribbean speculative fiction, our own way of interpreting and managing trauma." Karen Lord
This enchanting panel visits the nature and purpose of folklore - past, present and future. Is folklore still relevant to today’s society? Do folklore traditions differ in various Caribbean ethnic cultures? Were folkstories ever truth-based? These are some of the burning questions we will ask and attempt to answer. As we look at folklore through the lenses of very different writers, the focus invariably shifts to one of sustainability. Can it go with us into the future? The invisible world was always a presence and partner to our ancestors. How are the stories being interpreted in contemporary Caribbean literature and what is the reception from a global market thriving with stories that dabble in mythical and magical worlds?
Flame to Fire: Creole Language as Love and Resistance in Caribbean Literature
5-6.30pm, EST
Venue: Zoom
Host: Naette Lee
Featuring: Patricia Powell (JA), Kei Miller (JA), Curdella Forbes (JA) and others
In many ways, it feels like the existence of Caribbean literature as a genre is itself an act of defiance. Histories are retold, truths are confronted all while creole language is laid bare to an evolutionary and dynamic process. We admit that we are dependent on the writer to help us process the worlds we live in and vision the ones we ought to work towards. That work and the language it carries is at once romantic and fierce. Our stories are used to bless and curse, to soothe and instigate, call us to action and reflection. Language then, becomes an indispensable object in the telling of how we love and how we fight. Join us and our specially invited guest writers for this special event where we discuss how they employed creole, or nation language, in the writing of their stories that were dying to be told.
