By Elizabeth (Betty) Wilson
The University
of Maryland’s Latin American Studies Centre will host a virtual belated
celebration of the 30th anniversary of the ground-breaking collection Her
True-True Name: An Anthology of Women’s Writing from the Caribbean on Feb.
18. This is being spearheaded by Prof. Merle Collins, poet and prose writer
from Grenada, whose work appears in the anthology.
Published in
1989, near the beginning of the era of Gender Studies and Women’s Studies, Her
True-True Name was the first anthology of prose writing by Caribbean women
and the first to include non-English-speaking writers. The title is taken from
an extract in the text by the Trinidadian writer Merle Hodge.
This seems to
apply to the anthology as well. Although it was at the top of the list of texts
chosen for the “20 Selected Titles List” in the UK for Feminist Book Fortnight
in 1990 and named by the librarians of the New York Public Library as one of
100 books recommended for young readers in the same year, it is only in
retrospect that we, the editors, recognized its historical importance.
There have been
several excellent Caribbean anthologies since, and while Her True-True Name
is now out of print, the attention and excitement generated by this virtual
event attest to its importance and impact.
Conceived as a
response to our interest in having a Caribbean-wide publication of writing by
women, the editors, my sister Pamela Mordecai and myself, set about trying to
select the “tiny sample” which 200 pages would permit. We eventually found room
for 31 writers from 13 countries, from Cuba in the north to Belize and Guyana
on the South American / Caribbean mainland.
The
introduction to the text details some of the challenges we encountered in those
days before “calls for submissions”, cell phones and the internet. We were both
on the staff of the University of the West Indies, Mona, and blessed to know
personally many writers and scholars at home and in the wider Caribbean - who spoke
French, English, Creole and Spanish; their input was a source of contacts and
encouragement.
We also knew
the artist, Sharon Chacko, whose batik “Metamorphosis” (1986) appears on the
cover. Sadly, the inclusion of writers from the Dutch-speaking Caribbean had to
wait until 1992, when we were guest editors for a special issue of The
Literary Review (Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey),
“Women Poets of the Caribbean”, where they were included.
We are so
grateful to Merle Collins and her team, and I am excited to invite you to this
free virtual event.