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THE GATHERING: Barbados’ strike force against the COVID-19 pandemic

PROLOGUE: NEVER RETREAT, NEVER SURRENDER

Story, Script and Illustrations by the Research Methods Class of 2020

Barbados, Barbados Community College, Comic, COVID-19, Graphic Novel, Pandemic, Superheroes

Brathwaite’s risky reinvention of his important trilogy—Mother Poem (1977), Sun Poem (1982) and X/Self (1987)—has much to offer old and new readers alike. The celebrated Barbadian poet has reworked the text in his own hieroglyphic “Sycorax video style” type. His dispossessed speakers habitually declare themselves in free verse dialect.

Sharma Taylor (second from left), 2019 Frank Collymore Literary Award winner.

Sharma Taylor 2019 Frank Collymore Literary Award Winner

Central Bank of Barbados Governor Cleviston Haynes with top 2019 Frank Collymore Literary Award winner Sharma Taylor (second from left) beside sister awardees Claudia Clarke and Sarah Venable. Photo Copyright © 2020 courtesy of the Central Bank of Barbados.

The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words Anthology, 2017/2018.

Winning Words...And Saving Lives

Casting out again. This edition's cover is by Kai Miller.

A version of the following speech was presented by ArtsEtc Editor Robert Edison Sandiford at the launch of The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words Anthology 2017/2018 held at the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre November 14, 2019.

GOOD EVENING, ladies and gentlemen, artists and patrons, art sponsors and art angels.

I suspect what I’m about to say will sound a little like a vote of thanks. This is, maybe more so than in past years, inevitable.

ArtsEtc, Bajan, Barbadian Literature, Barbados, Essays, Fiction, National Cultural Foundation, NIFCA, poetry

Paule Marshall, April 9, 1929, to August 12, 2019.

Missing Paule Marshall: A Tribute

“…Thus, a complex body of work was narrowed down to its racial themes, as though a black artist’s work could be seen and appreciated only if it was presented as clearly and recognizably black….” Nell Painter

Heather Barker, Second Place Winner, Frank Collymore Literary Award 2018.

Frank Collymore Literary Award Winners In Print

Heather Barker, second-place winner of the 2017 Frank Collymore Literary Award for The Plundering, a collection of stories. The title story appeared in the anthology So Many Islands, edited by Nicholas Laughlin with Nailah Folami Imoja. Photo Copyright © 2018 by the Central Bank of Barbados.

Barbadian Literature, Frank Collymore Literary Award (The Collys)

Poet and ArtsEtc founding editor Linda M. Deane, circa 2008.

Mapping Barbados' LitScape

MAPPING BARBADOS’ LITSCAPE is an ArtsEtc project to track and document Barbados’ very rich and diverse literary tradition. At our house, the need to better connect readers to this landscape and region has taken many forms over the years.

Barbadian Literature, The Bajan Reporter, Days Books, Frank Collymore Literary Award (The Collys), green readings, NIFCA Winning Words Anthology

A Review of Watching Out for Mummy

Norma Meek sure knows how to pack a bariffle of pre-teen troubles into 150 pages.

In Watching Out for Mummy, which the author wrote twelve years ago and is still her only novel, we meet 11-year-old Shawn Austin at a moment of transition: he’s about to swap life in Barbados for life in New Jersey in the United States, where his mum lives.

Barbadian Literature, Barbados, New Jersey, Norma Meek, YA

A Review of Natives of My Person

Aboard the Reconnaissance, the vessel where Natives of My Person takes place, a member of the crew, a young and boastful carpenter, banters with a more experienced crewmember who tells the carpenter that he has much to learn. “You are too young to have much history,” he warns the carpenter. The carpenter’s pride is hurt, so he boasts of the skills and achievement of his ancestors, of the lineage of craftsmen to which he was born and he says, “I have a lot history in my hands.”

Barbados, Barbadian Literature, Historical Fiction, George Lamming, Natives of My Person, Novel

The 2019 IndyList

THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List is now nine years old!

The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.

The list, which first appeared in 2011, is part of the Editors' ongoing "Mapping Our Literature" mission, which promotes awareness of and celebrates Barbadian books and their authors. Each year, we recommend new, classic, and noteworthy titles in fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children’s literature.

And we encourage you to discover and add your own!

Barbadian Literature, Barbados' Independence, Caribbean Literature

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