Blog

by Jeremy Poynting

Poems on the Underground are now showcasing the poem "The Weight of the World" by Seni Seneviratne on London public transport. The poem is also featured on the Poems on the Underground website as their Poem of the Week until Sunday.

The new poems, including Seni's, are live on London Underground and Overground cars until March.

As Spring approaches, the common theme is LOVE - of persons and places, welcomed, scorned, remembered, rediscovered.

Peter Jordens has compiled an extensive list of Caribbean conferences as a gift for the 15th anniversary of the blog Repeating Islands.

You can read an excerpt, or download the full list covering March-November 2024, at Repeating Islands.

The Guyana Prize Literary Festival begins today and ends on Sunday 3 March. Most of the events and activities take place at Castellani House and the National Cultural Centre (NCC), with the Awards Ceremony for the Guyana Prize at the NCC on Friday 1 March, at 7.00 pm local time. Prizes are awarded for Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Non-Fiction, in addition to the Youth Awards. This year's nominees include Ian McDonald and Sasenarine Persaud.

The Bookseller recently ran an article titled "ACE clarifies advice on 'political statements' but trade figures still concerned about threat to free speech". Peepal Tree Managing Editor Jeremy Poynting sent a letter to The Bookseller outlining his response to the new Arts Council guidance; numerous other ACE-funded publishers also spoke to the publication. Only part of Jeremy's letter was published, but the rest can be found below the link to the article.

"Lakshmi Persaud, who has died aged 86, was inspired by the success of her fellow Trinidadian Indian, the Nobel laureate VS Naipaul, to become a writer, and was the author of some five well-received novels, most of which engaged with the experience of the Indian diaspora, particularly women, in colonial and post-colonial Trinidad..."

Read the article in full (paywall).

Tenement Yards (Readings with illustrations)
Date: Tuesday 30 January 2024 
Time: 11.00 AM Guyana / 10.00 AM Toronto/New York / 3.00 PM UK 
Online
Free (registration required)*

January

The Animated Universe
New West Indian Guide

Archipelagos
New West Indian Guide 

Azucar
New West Indian Guide 

The 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, sponsored by One Caribbean Media, has announced its judging panel, headed by Edwidge Danticat. This includes Peepal Tree authors Andre Bagoo, Curdella Forbes, Rabindranath Maharaj, and Ann-Margaret Lim.

Read the list in full.

In advance of her Feb. 1 Black History Month lecture at Fordham, guest speaker Merle Collins, Ph.D.—a poet, novelist, filmmaker, scholar, and professor emerita at University of Maryland, College Park—spoke with Fordham associate professor Laurie Lambert, Ph.D., about Collins’ new book based on the mother of Malcolm X. 

Read the interview in full.