Following the
nomination of several authors for prestigious international awards, Caribbean
literature gets a further boost in April with the 4th Congrès des écrivains de
la Caraïbe (4th Congress of Caribbean Writers), being held in Guadeloupe April
15 to 18.
With the
theme of “Travel, Migration, Diasporas in Caribbean Literatures”, the congress
features some 50 writers over the four-day event, hosted by the Regional
Council of Guadeloupe and the Association of Caribbean Writers.
The authors
will give readings, join panel debates and meet with students, according to the
organizers. Participants will also pay tribute to Maryse Condé, the renowned
Guadeloupean writer who was recently nominated for the Man Booker International
Prize.
“This
biennial meeting is an occasion to place literature as the compendium of our
Guadeloupean history, and equally to look at our international role and to
examine our Caribbean culture,” said Victorin Lurel, President of the Regional
Council.
In a
statement ahead of the congress, Lurel urged Caribbean populations to
support literature, and he reaffirmed Guadeloupe’s commitment to promoting
books and bridging the language divide in the region.
“Although
honoured globally, the literatures of the Caribbean still need these kinds of
international meetings to go beyond linguistic barriers and geographic
partitions, and to try to build a common literary space,” Lurel said.
Writers from
21 nations of the Caribbean and the wider Americas are set to participate in
the Congress, representing countries such as Antigua, Barbados, Colombia, Cuba,
Guyana, Haïti and Jamaica, among others.
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| Daniel Maximin |
The
Guadeloupean poet and novelist Daniel Maximin is the guest of honour, with the
Congress paying homage to his long career as writer, professor and advocate of
the arts.
Maximin will
give the inaugural address. His last published work is the seminal Aimé
Césaire, Frère-Volcan - recording 40 years of dialogue with the late
Martinique-born literary icon.
Other writers hailing from around the region include Joël Des Rosiers and Yanick Lahens of
Haïti; Carlos Roberto Gómez Beras, of Puerto Rico; Earl Lovelace, Lawrence
Scott and Elizabeth Nunez, of Trinidad
and Tobago; Kwame Dawes of Jamaica; Yolanda Wood of Cuba; and Mac Donald
Dixon and Vladimir Lucien of St. Lucia.
Lucien, a
poet, comes fresh from being honoured in Trinidad, with his book Sounding
Ground on the shortlist of three works for the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for
Caribbean Literature.
The Congress
will present its own prestigious award, the Prix littéraire de l’Association
des écrivains de la Caraïbe, and the competition is tough, reflecting the great
productivity of Caribbean writers over the past two years. Eighteen nominees
come from French-speaking islands, 10 from the Anglophone countries and 14 from
Spanish-speaking nations.
The list
includes Dany Laferrière (Haiti), Simone Schwarz-Bart and André Schwarz-Bart
(Guadeloupe), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Sharon Leach (Jamaica), and Héctor
Torres (Venezuela), just to name a few.
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| Participating writer Kwame Dawes |
The Congress
has grown massively since its launch in 2009, when Nobel laureate Derek Walcott
was the guest of honour, and both writers and readers are increasingly
embracing the richness of Caribbean diversity and history, say scholars.
As Earl
Lovelace notes: The linguistic plurality of our geographic basin is
considered, often wrongly, as an obstacle to exchange, to cooperation. But In
truth, it’s an extraordinary source of wealth.
(UPDATE: The Grand Prix Littéraire was awarded on April 18 to Simone and André Schwarz-Bart for their work l'Ancêtre en Solitude, published by éditions du Seuil, February 2015.)
(UPDATE: The Grand Prix Littéraire was awarded on April 18 to Simone and André Schwarz-Bart for their work l'Ancêtre en Solitude, published by éditions du Seuil, February 2015.)
