My good friend, Joan Dayal, provides a wonderful service for those of us who love and appreciate the extraordinary talent our people have for writing, film making or other creative activities. About once a month, her bookstore called Paper Based that specialises in local literature, hosts An Evening of Tea & Readings event. This is usually held at the Normandie Hotel in St. Anns and showcases five or so people who have recently published a book or performed a creative pursuit.
It is always an eclectic mixture of fiction, non-fiction or subject matter. Afterwards, you get to mingle with the speakers and your other like-minded attendees, over a snack and a cup of tea/coffee/juice. This has proved to be immensely popular, now requiring you to book your spot in advance.
A couple of weeks ago, I was particularly attracted to the line-up for the August Tea & Readings event. This is how it went:
Her non-fiction book, Making Waves: How the West Indies Shaped the United States, was born out of anger in response to a comment that the Caribbean was shaped by the USA and not the other way round. Debbie read out an extract from this book which covered the life and death of Alexander Hamilton, who was born in Nevis. She researched FBI files and even the transcripts from trials from the seventeenth century onwards, for information on this great and colourful character, who died in a duel at the age of forty-nine.
The book contains other such examples of people who were born in the West Indies and who helped shape America.
As Harold pointed out, he does not look like he’s of Irish descent. After his father died in 1991, he decided to trace his ancestral roots through ancestry.com. He wanted to discover the identity of his paternal grandparents. His book tells the story of his Irish great-grandfather, Edward Moylan, and his impact on the colonial West Indies.
Harold wrote the biography A Fiery Irishman: The Life and Career of Edward Kyran Moylan 1844-1893 to tell the story of this journalist, colonial official and lawyer who left Dublin to go to Sierra Leone and ultimately became the Attorney General of Tobago. He was infamous for having introduced a rum tax there! Edward Moylan also served in other West Indian islands such as St. Vincent and Grenada.
I had the pleasure of reading her fascinating and very well-written memoir, The Naipauls of Nepaul Street, after its launch at this year’s Bocas Lit Fest. This is the story of two East Indian families, the Naipauls and the Capildeos, who had originally arrived in Trinidad as indentured labourers, and grew to literary prominence against a backdrop of enormous political and cultural changes in the island.
Savi read an extract that described her childhood living in the large Petit Valley estate house that was owned by her maternal grandmother, and another when the family lived in Luis Street (the inspiration for her brother, V.S. Naipaul’s, Miguel Street). We observed a minute’s silence as a mark of respect for Sir Vidia Naipaul who recently passed away.
Her Young Adult novella, Home Home, is about a depressed Trinidadian teenager who gets sent to Canada to live with her lesbian aunt. Lisa read an amusing extract detailing how the mother compared her young daughter to her accomplished aunt in Canada, then later reversed this, presumably when she discovered the aunt’s lifestyle.
The manuscript for this work of fiction was named third place in the CODE Burt Awards for Caribbean Literature in 2017.
He read extracts from two of his books. The first was from the novel, The Beast of Kukuyo (2017 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature), about a young girl who was murdered and her body stuffed in a hole. The second was from the short story, Passage (global winner of the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize), telling a strange tale set in the mountainous, rain-forests of Trinidad.
Kevin was previously named the 2015 Caribbean regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and also achieved the fiction shortlist for the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for his novel, The Repenters. This accomplished and much-published author is definitely someone to follow.
If you enjoy reading and like to collect books signed by the author, or perhaps you aspire to be a writer yourself, then check out these Tea & Reading events. You won’t be disappointed.
Special thanks to Kevin Hackshaw for the use of the photos from this session.
