On Wednesday 29 March 2023, at 5pm, the Department of Literatures in English will host the launch of Geoffrey Philp's sixth collection of poems, Archipelagos.
Then on Thursday 30 March 2023, at 4pm, Geoffrey will deliver the 16th Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture, “Garveyism in the 21st Century: Climate Change”, focusing on Jamaica.
Author photo by Naomi Woddis
Anthony Joseph recently won the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry collection Sonnets for Albert (Bloomsbury). In celebration, T&T Newsday has published a profile of his work, mentioning his previous collections with Peeoal Tree and the wider impact of Trinbagonian writing in the Anglosphere.
In the online edition of Granta, Ira Mathur and Monique Roffey discuss memoirs, writing and colonial legacies in Trinidad.
I like connecting the dots. For example, my time with Derek Walcott was recorded as meticulously as I remembered it. But unlike journalism, I wrote this memoir like one would a diary: based on fact but deeply subjective. I excavated and examined my interiority and memory, which we all know has moments of being unreliable.
In his article "Out for a revolution: Shapurji Saklatvala", Marc Wadsworth writes about the election of Shapurji Saklatvala, AKA "Comrade Sak".
One hundred years ago today, on November 15 1922, an Indian freedom fighter and communist was elected to the British Parliament as the Battersea Trades Council and Labour Party MP.
In October, John Robert Lee curated Acalabash Caribbean Poetry Portfolio-13. The portfolio includes poems and artwork from across the Caribbean.
Featuring:
Over at the Jamaica Observer, Jacqueline Bishop writes about the recent set of plates she has completed under the title The Market Woman's Story. She discusses her journey as an artist and how she uses local Caribbean flowers to tell Jamaican women's stories, such as in her first poetry collection, Fauna.
Shara McCallum has won the 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry for No Ruined Stone. The winners were announced in a virtual ceremony last night.
The 2022 winners are:
Fiction
Judges: Preston Allen, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Amina Gautier
Debut Fiction
Judges: Ron A. Austin, Breena Clarke, and Zinzi Clemmons
Aura Libraries in Wales have put together a list of essential books for Black History Month. Included in the list is Malika Booker's Pepper Seed.
On 23 November 2022, Geoffrey Philp will be granted the Silver Musgrave Medal by the Council of the Institute of Jamaica for outstanding merit in the field of literature. The Musgrave Medal is an annual award in recognition of achievement in art, science, and literature. Originally conceived in 1889, the award was named in memory of Sir Anthony Musgrave, the founder of the Institute and the former Governor of Jamaica who had died the previous year.
