Hansib Review - Issue 2

HansibReview Issue No. 2

Welcome to Our World

Small Island States & SIDS4 • Una Marson • Willi Chen • Dominica • The Bahamas Marsha Pearce • Arthur France • Guyana • Louis Lee Sing • PLUS over 160 books!

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

In this issue Welcome to Our World

Issue No. 2

PUBLISHING

TOURISM

FICTION

Hansib founder honoured 4

The Bahamas and the birth of Caribbean tourism 25

A cauldron where saints and sinners bare their souls 34

Liverpool’s African saint 8

BIOGRAPHY

SHORT STORY

ART & LITERATURE

England: The bad “mother” country 28

King of the Carnival 38 Biography & Memoir 41

GUYANA

Una Marson: A woman of extraordinary creativity and ambition 30

The land of many waters... and many wonders 13

The Keys: A lost and found voice of Black Britain 31

THE ENVIRONMENT

OBITUARY

Voyage of resilience for small island states 21

Brinsley Samaroo: Pioneering scholar of indentureship 32

HISTORY

Exploring the sensations of place and identity 11

Hurricane Irma’s devastating impact on Barbuda 22 Dominica ushers in a new era of marine conservation 23

BOOKSHELF

Non-Fiction 50 Fiction & Poetry 64

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13 COVER IMAGE: ‘North Coast Road’ by Edward Bowen (2017).

Acrylics, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 96 inches.

Reproduced with permission from the artist and featured in Black Light Void: Dark Visions of the Caribbean edited by Marsha Pearce (Hansib, 2023).

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HANSIB PUBLICATIONS: GIVING A VOICE TO THE UNHEARD SINCE 1970

© Hansib Publications Ltd, 2024. Published by Hansib Publications Ltd. All rights reserved.

The opinions, views and beliefs expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect those of Hansib Publications or its representatives and agents.

The freedom of expression applies not only to information or ideas that are favourably received, but also to those that may offend, shock or disturb. It applies to all who wish to seek, receive or impart information and ideas of all kinds.

Article 10 of the Human Rights Act states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.”

FOR MORE THAN FIVE DECADES, Hansib Publications has published the compelling narratives that explore themes of struggle, resilience and triumph, migration and the cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

Committed to its core mission to give a voice to the unheard, our books carry a unique perspective, such as the historical explorations featured in Before Windrush: West Indians in Britain, by Martin and Asher Hoyles, the personal memoir in Belonging: Fate and Changing Realities by Herman Ouseley, and introspective novels like Closer to the Church by Louis Lee Sing.

Recent titles include Black Light Void: Dark Visions of the Caribbean edited by Marsha Pearce,

Reaching for the Stars: The Life of Dr Yesu Persaud

by David Dabydeen and Lynne Macedo, and A Long Journey: The History of the Derby West Indian Community Association, which all contribute to the rich tapestry of Caribbean voices and experiences.

We remain dedicated to our role as a champion for under-represented voices and continue to seek out and nurture the talents of a diverse range of authors, providing them with the necessary editorial and publishing support to bring their stories to life.

And through the pages of Hansib Review, we aim to connect with our readers and celebrate the very essence of Hansib Publications and its unwavering commitment to share stories that deserve to be heard.

For all enquiries, including advertising, article submissions and book proposals: Email: info@hansibpublications.com • Telephone / Text / WhatsApp: +44 (0)7930 603 956 Website: www.hansibpublications.com Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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PUBLISHING

Hansib founder honoured with prestigious Bocas award

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onouring his role in preserving Caribbean culture, thought and art in print, the Guyana-born, UK-based founder of Hansib Publications, Arif Ali, has received the 2024 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters. This award recognises individuals who have made significant contributions to Caribbean literature, and Ali’s decades-long dedication to amplifying Caribbean voices through Hansib Publications makes him a fitting recipient.

Founded in 2013, the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award is named after the BBC producer, Henry Swanzy, whose tenure at the ‘Caribbean Voices’ radio programme from 1946 to 1954 was transformative for West Indian writers. He played a crucial role in promoting Caribbean writing to regional and international audiences at the start of the post-war publishing boom. This annual award celebrates the contributions of editors, broadcasters, publishers, critics and others who have devoted their careers to developing Caribbean literature.

Many West Indian writers received their start on ‘Caribbean Voices’ during Swanzy’s tenure including George Lamming, Derek Walcott, Sam Selvon, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, V.S. Naipaul, Edgar Mittelholzer and Ian McDonald.

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rif’s journey into the world of publishing began in his north London greengrocer’s shop which catered for the needs of the burgeoning Caribbean migrant community. It was in these premises that he used a Gestetner printing machine to reproduce articles from the various Caribbean newspapers he brought into the shop. This hands-on, frugal venture, which he dubbed The Westindian, spurred him on and he soon recognised the need for a platform for Caribbean and Black experiences often absent from mainstream media.

Defying the odds stacked against promoting Caribbean stories in a landscape that offered little support, he took a bold step and sold his shop and 4

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Defying the odds stacked against promoting Caribbean stories, Arif Ali took a bold step in 1970 when he founded Hansib Publications.

First published in April 1971, The West Indian Digest was a monthly magazine that marked Arif Ali’s first steps into the world of publishing. The September 1972 edition celebrated the inaugural Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA), which was hosted by Guyana

founded Hansib Publications in 1970. The name of his fledgling publishing company is a portmanteau word created from the names of his parents, Haniff and Nasiben.

Arif’s self-taught acumen as a publisher grew with the launch in 1971 of the monthly magazine, The West Indian Digest. Over the next decade, Hansib expanded to produce other magazines, newspapers, periodicals and books for Britain’s Caribbean, Asian and African heritage communities.

These titles included the campaigning weekly newspapers, Caribbean Times, Asian Times, African Times and West Indian World, and the magazines Asian Digest and Root Magazine.

PUBLISHING

These publications served as vital spaces for what Hansib termed as the ‘visible minority’ communities in the UK, addressing and championing issues that were often overlooked.

From race relations and social justice to cultural identity and the experiences of immigrants, these titles provided a platform for the marginalised voices to be heard.

In 1973, Hansib launched its first book, Westindians in Britain, which served as a ‘Who’s Who’ of members of the migrant communities whose efforts and achievements received little or no fanfare elsewhere. The publication proved so popular that several editions were issued, up to 1982, after when it was renamed Third World Impact to include members of the African and Asian heritage communities. As decades progressed, Hansib’s attention turned more and

more to book publishing in almost every conceivable genre.

Hansib carved a niche as a leading publisher of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction and published the works of established and emerging authors, ensuring a richness and diversity within its offerings. This commitment nurtured and supported the careers of writers who would go on to shape the Caribbean literary landscape.

Now, over fifty years old, Hansib’s list of authors includes established Caribbean luminaries such as Frank Birbalsingh, Jan Carew, Patricia Mohammed, Willi Chen, Horace Campbell, Brinsley Samaroo, Shridath Ramphal, David Dabydeen, Ronald Sanders and Ian McDonald, alongside younger rising talents such as Joanne C. Hillhouse and Brenda Lee Browne. Caribbean leaders also take their place among the authors

This headline from West Indian World reflected Arif Ali’s uncompromising stance. In a speech to Caribbean leaders in 1973, he warned of the conditions faced by Britain’s Black communities and the threat of forced repatriation. His ‘Blood will flow’ speech echoed that of Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of blood’ speech in 1968.

Caribbean Independence from Great Britain ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 1 November 1981 THE BAHAMAS 10 July 1973 BARBADOS 30 November 1966 BELIZE 21 September 1981 DOMINICA 3 November 1978 GRENADA 7 February 1974 GUYANA 26 May 1966 JAMAICA 6 August 1962 ST KITTS AND NEVIS 19 September 1983 ST LUCIA 22 February 1979 ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES 27 October 1979 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 31 August 1962

Extract from the West Indian World editorial, 29 June 1973 In Barbados last week Arif Ali, this paper’s editor, spoke with passion, feeling and reason on the plight of West Indians in Britain. If ever anyone needed assurance that the West Indian World is not a mercenary newspaper concerned only with advertising revenue and profit, but a paper that genuinely cares for the welfare of its people, Arif Ali’s straight-from-the-shoulder speech should leave them in no doubt.

As for the authorities in this country, the warning is clear: we are not going to allow ourselves to be forcibly repatriated without a fight.

We have no desire to engage in any melodramatic rhetoric. The events of the past few months, the burning of Black shops, the killing of a Black girl in circumstances that suggest political

arson, and the ever-increasing brutality of sections of the British police to Black people emphasise the need for vigilance on the part not only of Black people here, but more importantly, Black people in the free states of the Caribbean.

Our brothers and sisters are getting tired of reading about acts of brutality against Black people in Britain. They, too, are itching for action.

The fascist thugs of Britain have an insane hatred of Black people: they cannot work out the consequences. But their more literate political masters can.

Let them act quickly before the acts of retaliation which many Black people are clamouring for in the Caribbean really start.

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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PUBLISHING

Meeting with South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela during his State Visit to the UK in 1996. Pictured from left are Arif Ali, HE Mendi Msimang, South Africa’s High Commissioner to the UK, President Mandela and Guyana-born Sir Shridath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal, who was the former and longest-serving (1975-1990) Commonwealth Secretary-General.

Arif Ali, pictured centre in 1987, with UK Members of Parliament, from left, Paul Boateng, Keith Vaz, Bernie Grant and Diane Abbott. The year heralded the election to Parliament of the UK’s first Black MPs, Boateng, Grant and Abbott, with Vaz becoming the first Asian member to be elected for nearly sixty years.

and include Errol Barrow, Cheddi Jagan, A.N.R. Robinson, V.C. Bird, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, David Granger, Jennifer M. Smith and Lester Bird.

Since the early 1980s, Hansib has published more than three hundred books and has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

In 1998, Arif was appointed to sit on the Caribbean Advisory Group which was established by the newly elected New Labour Government in the UK. Its purpose was to review and inform British policy towards the Caribbean nations and advise the UK government on policy decisions related to the Caribbean region.

Arif Ali retired from the day-to-day business of his publishing house but remains at the centre of its mission to make publishing accessible, educational and within reach to Caribbean citizens at home and in the wider diaspora. His unwavering dedication to his vision for Hansib Publications has had a lasting impact. He didn’t just publish books and magazines, but built a bridge between the Caribbean and its diaspora, fostering a sense 6

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Boxing legend, Muhammad Ali was the guest of honour in 1984 at a gala event to launch Hansib’s sixth edition of Third World Impact. The book provided an insight into the contributions made to British society by members of Britain’s ‘visible minority’ communities.

of community and providing a much-needed platform for Caribbean voices to resonate across the globe.

The 2024 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award is a testament to Arif’s belief in the power of the written word and his lifelong commitment to ensuring that the stories of the Caribbean are not only heard but celebrated.

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HISTORY

Liverpool’s African saint Marika Sherwood

D

aniels Ekarte arrived in Liverpool from Nigeria around 1915 expecting to find the streets paved with gold.

Instead, he found the Dingle area of Toxteth depressed, poor, racist and, to his mind, ungodly. In 1931, he founded the African Churches Mission, in which he not only conducted services but also fed and clothed the poor of the community, and housed seamen and others denied accommodation due to the colour of their skin.

He also provided a home for the unwanted children of local white women left behind by their fathers – African-American servicemen who returned home at the end of World War II. Ekarte was regarded as troublesome by the Establishment and, therefore, received no state or voluntary support, not even from the Anti-Slavery Society. Nevertheless, he and his mission soldiered on for over thirty years until the dilapidated building was finally demolished by the local council in 1964.

Using British and international sources, historian Marika Sherwood has pieced together the remarkable life and work of Pastor Daniels Ekarte, who was referred to as the African Saint.

According to his Identity Service Certificate, which was issued to colonial seamen in place of passports, George Daniel (the name Ekarte is not on the Certificate), was born in Calabar, Nigeria, on 1 January 1904. However, this may not be accurate because Western-style bureaucracy in Nigeria was very elementary in those years and births were not recorded with officials. In 1926, the year the certificate was issued, George Daniel was recorded as being five foot six inches tall and of British nationality.

That he was issued with such a certificate did not necessarily mean that young George was working as a seaman, though he had worked his way to Britain on a ship. In those days, the British government was most reluctant to issue ‘colonials’ with passports, as these would have given them greater freedom of mobility. However, even the 8

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

An African man preaching in the street was not a welcome sight to the police, especially one attracting a crowd. possession of this certificate, clearly stating that he was British, gave the young man some security against deportation.

Why and when had George Daniels come to Liverpool? According to the interviews he gave and what he had written about himself, many years ago he had worked as an errand-boy for Revd Wilkie, a Free Church of Scotland missionary in Calabar. Another missionary, Mary Slessor, visited Dr Wilkie’s mission station a number of times and the young boy was so greatly impressed by her that he left the service of Dr Wilkie and joined Miss Slessor in Itu. There he learned to “read my primers in English, to sing ‘At the name of Jesus’, and to say the Lord’s Prayer in my native tongue”.

The young boy decided that he, too, would become a missionary. He began this work by “giving testimony at prayer meetings and by going to other villages to teach other children”. Soon he became “fixed with a greater ambition, to go to the ‘holy land’ of England where my ‘holy mother’ came from”. Though Mary Slessor warned him that people in England were not “enthusiastic about heavenly things”, he ignored these warnings and in 1915, after her death, shipped out as a galley-hand on an Elder Dempster ship.

ARRIVAL IN LIVERPOOL The young man was shocked by Liverpool: by the cheeky children, the quarrelling, swearing, racism and general licentiousness compared to Itu. He worked for a while at Bibby’s oil mills and at Fairrie’s sugar refinery. But times were hard and Ekarte drifted into gambling and became “a partner in some vicious occupations”. He bought a gun, determined to return to Calabar and “shoot

HISTORY

Pastor Daniels Ekarte pictured with women and children outside the African Churches Mission in 1946.

all missionaries, black and white” because they had deceived him. He also intended showing the “various chiefs my note book in which I had written down all the insults I had received from the Christian people in the ‘holy country’”.

Fate intervened. One Sunday morning he was walking past 4 Hardy Street, where Africans used to meet to worship. He usually avoided this place, but on this day he heard a voice calling him and he went in. “A great light came into my heart. I went in and knelt down to pray.” Soon afterwards, Ekarte threw his gun and notebook into the River Mersey and began a new life. The year was 1922.

This dramatic account of his early years in Liverpool comes from Daniels Ekarte’s own testimony over the years.

MISSIONARY IN LIVERPOOL Daniels Ekarte now began “holding services in private rooms and in the open air ... All sorts of people listening, Chinese, Arabs, Africans like myself”. An African man preaching in the street was not a welcome sight to the police, especially one attracting a crowd. Ekarte was arrested twice on charges of obstruction. Refusing to pay the fine, he was jailed.

In jail he continued to preach and sing hymns.

Besides preaching in the street, Ekarte began visiting Africans on ships, in lodging houses and hospitals.

For unknown reasons, Ekarte stopped preaching at 4 Hardy Street, where there was a Coloured Men’s Religious Institute run by a Pastor William Bernard. He then preached at the Gospel Hall on the corner of Dickenson and Pitt Streets.

When he left there also, he was offered space for religious services by the Aditunje family from Ghana at 16 Cookson Street. He was married then, to a white woman named Lily and they had a son named George. Lily died in about 1927 and young George was fostered.

With financial aid from an increasing number of supporters, Daniels Ekarte hired a hall in Dickenson Street, but he was hounded out of there by racists.

READ MORE...

Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the African Churches Mission: Liverpool 19311964

by Marika Sherwood Paperback, £11.99 / US $18.00 eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

ART & LITERATURE

Exploring the sensations of place and identity Marsha Pearce

I

FACING PAGE: ‘Totem’ by Edward Bowen (2017), acrylics, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 84 inches.

Reproduced in Black Light Void: Dark Visions of the Caribbean edited by Marsha Pearce (Hansib, 2023).

t is hot in the tropics. This is not knowledge gleaned from travel magazines, with their sun-drenched images. Having been born and raised in the twin-island state of Trinidad and Tobago, it is an assertion of lived fact. Beyond oscillations between the dry and rainy seasons, I rarely check the day’s temperature. Heat is, for the most part, a constant. There is little need to verify small shifts in degrees. Instead, it is the modulation of light that draws my attention – the progression of soft morning light to the piercing afternoon sun arcing across minutes, hours, before slipping into that pocket where sky meets earth.

Light’s brightness changes. Its angles vary. In reading its qualities I note the way its shape also morphs: how it narrows between fig leaves, or swells as it bounces off vehicles in downtown traffic. Light’s condition is fickle. Yet, what is often unchanging is its warmth. This is not evidence of a feverish state, but the recognition of a visual sensation. Impressions of yellows, oranges and even pink light make heat a phenomenon that is not only felt in the tropics, but seen. Acts of seeing, however, are never neutral. There are implications of such sight.

While we might argue that light changes everywhere, what is at stake in reading light’s colour is not making critical connections between its hotter hues, or cooler tones, and the specificities of place – not seeing the link to how we experience and understand a particular place, and ourselves, through colour.

According to insights from light psychology, we relax in places illuminated by warm, yellow light. In contrast, contexts lit by cool, bluish light help us to see clearly – they are spaces of attentiveness and deep concentration. Light’s colour temperature has a psychic effect on us.

What this means for the tropics is expressed in Derek Walcott’s comparison of hot and cold geographic locations. “For tourists, the sunshine

cannot be serious,” he observes, while “winter adds depth and darkness to life” In places historically defined in terms of a leisure and pleasure trope, bodies loosen up, minds calm and the gaze relaxes. Seeing is reduced to the clichés of sea, sand and palm tree. Under the warm sunlight, experiential nuances are often overlooked by the traveller in search of a tropical escape. Fluid details are missed in a perpetual, amber heat. What if we removed colour from the psychic equation that sums up a sense of place?

What if tropical places could be seen in a different light?

With its focus on the Caribbean, Black Light Void: Dark Visions of the Caribbean attends to what it means to see in the dark. It considers darkness or, more specifically, blackness as a critical epistemic space for seeing place and identity. It pushes a discourse about easy, transparent readings of the Other – facile interpretations of the Caribbean – beyond a proposal to see in terms of opacity. It moves from the opaque to the dark, the right to opacity, to a right to darkness. It situates its discussion and contents within a discourse on Caribbean aesthetics, to perceive.

What is addressed, therefore, is the matter of perception and knowledge in and of the Caribbean, and the selves that engage it. I speculate that critical aesthetic practices are not those readily seen, they are not those enacted in the sun – the visible light that is a defining feature of the tropics – but in the dark. I argue for seeing and reading the Caribbean in the dark.

READ MORE...

Black Light Void: Dark Visions of the Caribbean Edited by Marsha Pearce Paperback, £25.00 / US $30.00 eBook, £6.99 / US $8.50

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GUYANA

The land of many waters... and many wonders

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nown as the ‘land of many waters’ and the only South American country where English is the official language, Guyana is blessed with a vast network of waterways, waterfalls and rapids and quite possibly the world’s last largely untouched swathe of pristine rainforest covering most of its 83,000 square miles.

Bordered to the east by Suriname, to the south

by Brazil and to the west by Venezuela, its shores are washed on the north by the Atlantic Ocean from whence come the northeast trade winds, making this stretch of coastland, on which more than 80 per cent of its population still lives, one of the most beautiful and comfortable on which to dwell. Sitting some seven feet below sea level at the coastline, it is protected along much of its coast by a sea wall first constructed by the Dutch in the 1880s.

With a population of just over 800,000, it has been called the ‘mudlands’ because of the rich and fertile soil along its coastal belt.

The country was first colonised by the Dutch in the early seventeenth century in their quest to acquire lands akin to those of the other major European powers. However, it was back in 1531, with the arrival of an expedition led by the Spaniard Diego de Ordaz, that Europeans actually set foot on Guyanese soil.

Dutch sovereignty was officially recognised with the signing of the Treaty of Munster in 1648.

For more than 150 years, the Dutch retained control of the territory but both the French and the English would wrest control at various times with the British finally being ceded the three counties of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice in 1814. Named British Guiana in 1831, the country would remain under British control until independence in 1966.

First to inhabit these shores were the indigenous peoples the Dutch found living here when they settled in Essequibo. Strictly speaking, there are four main nations among the indigenous inhabitants: Warraus, Arawaks, Wapisianas and

FACING PAGE: Abundant vegetation, lush rainforests teeming with spectacular wildlife and a rich and vibrant culture are what make Guyana so enticing.

RIGHT: Guyana’s inland waterways are a vital and often busy transport network for the indigenous communities.

PHOTOS: DWAYNE HACKETT

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GUYANA

FROM TOP The town of Parika, and its busy ferry stelling, is located at the mouth of the Essequibo River on the eastern bank. Scheduled ferry services and river taxis (speedboats) provide connections to and from Parika and Leguan Island, Supenaam, Bartica, Adventure, Wakenaam Island and Hog Island.

Built in 1743 during the Dutch colonial era, Fort Zeelandia is situated on Fort Island at the mouth of the Essequibo River. It was a vital defence fortification and was built to withstand the heaviest bombardment.

Guyana’s Sea Wall runs for 280 miles along much of the country’s Atlantic coastline, including all of the coastline of the capital.

Construction began in 1855 and it was completed in 1892. The wall protects the many coastal settlements that are below sea level at high tide. In Georgetown, the Sea Wall is a popular venue, particularly on Sundays, for family picnics, musicians, cyclists, kite-flying and sightseers.

For centuries, the jaguar has held a powerful place in Guyanese folklore and mythology. Its strength, stealth and beauty have inspired awe and respect, particularly among indigenous communities who see it as the protector of the rainforest.

Culinary essentials are available alongside medicinal potions at Georgetown’s vibrant Bourda Market.

Stabroek Market in Georgetown is Guyana’s biggest market. Completed in 1881, the iconic iron and steel clock tower and covered market reflect the architecture of Britain’s Victorian era.

PHOTOS: IAN BRIERLEY

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GUYANA

Located on the Potaro River, Kaieteur Falls lies within the heart of Kaieteur National Park, a pristine haven of vibrant biodiversity. Lush rainforests, teeming with exotic flora and fauna, surround the falls, adding to the sense of awe-inspiring wilderness and wonder.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

Caribs, which include several sub-groups, Arrecunas, Akawaios, Patamonas, Wai-Wais and the Macusis.

The next to arrive were the enslaved Africans, brought in the mid-seventeenth century to service the ever-expanding agricultural enterprises set up by the Dutch. The abolition of slavery prompted the need for labour and in 1834 the first group of Portuguese arrived from the island of Madeira.

Small groups of German, English and Irish settlers also came at this time along with other Africans and settlers from neighbouring Caribbean countries. But it was the Indians, arriving in 1838, who would prove to be the largest contingent of labourers to fuel the system of indentureship proposed by Sir John Gladstone, British Member of Parliament, owner of one of the plantations on West Demerara and father of British Prime Minister, William Gladstone.

With the suspension of Indian indentureship that then ended in 1917, the first Chinese arrived in 1851, with the last group coming in 1879.

It was this amalgam, this potpourri, this cookup, which would evolve to become an independent nation. A nation that, four years after Independence, would declare itself the Co-operative Republic of

Guyana and proceed on a course of selfsufficiency with far reaching implications.

Independence was cemented in 1966 with the hoisting of the Golden Arrowhead. This new flag, National Anthem and other national songs, National Pledge and Coat of Arms were all symbols of the emergence of a new sovereign state. The euphoria that accompanied the first tentative steps into this bold new world, a feeling shared by much of the Caribbean at the time, was typified by an outpouring of creativity that would culminate in the first ever Caribbean Festival of the Arts (Carifesta) in 1972, held in Guyana.

The dream of nationhood, predicated on the republican ideal of egalitarianism, was soon superseded by the reality of the prevailing geopolitical situation. The choice of socialism as the guiding principle for the country’s development did not sit well with some in the international community and the pressure to change intensified. Even within this context, Guyana became one of the few countries in the hemisphere to provide free education from nursery to university and free healthcare for all.

Lack of resources and access to new technologies, however, would stymie development Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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GUYANA

Market day is a vibrant tapestry woven from the freshest tropical bounty and the infectious warmth of the Guyanese people.

PHOTOS: KURT JORDAN (FAR LEFT); IAN BRIERLEY (LEFT)

Traditional Indian dance is an opportunity to celebrate one of the many roots of Guyanese culture and heritage.

PHOTO: KURT JORDAN

A barber attending to his young customer.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

Mashramani, or ‘Mash’, is a vibrant explosion of colour, music and revelry that takes over Guyana on Republic Day, 23 February.

PHOTO: GUYANA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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GUYANA

Often compared with Kaieteur Falls, Kumerau Falls is located on the Kurupung River in Guyana’s north-western Region 7 (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

The Harpy Eagle is a vital part of the Guyanese rainforest ecosystem, where it keeps animal populations in check and maintains the delicate balance of the food chain.

With a wingspan reaching up to seven feet (2.1m) and weighing up to 9 kg, it is the largest and most powerful raptor in the Americas. This apex predator is an awe-inspiring embodiment of the wild jungle, both majestic and terrifying.

PHOTO: KEVIN LOUGHLIN

and the next years saw a steady decline in services and infrastructure.

The 1970s and 1980s, considered by many to have been the most challenging for the citizens of Guyana, saw an exodus that continues up until the present day. With an already small population, this brain drain has contributed significantly to some of the challenges with which the country is now confronted. Human resource capital is crucial for national development and some of Guyana’s best minds now live in the Diaspora. But within this framework there was also forged a resilience and fortitude that typifies the modern Guyanese citizen. They learnt to utilise what was available and many innovations were generated over those years.

Creativity and innovation bloomed as the search continued for solutions to the seemingly endless problems. Staple food was cultivated and a cuisine created using what was available; cotton planted to make locally produced clothes; houses built using materials that were found within the country’s borders and other survival strategies developed that surprised many when looking back at what were accomplished.

And many of those who migrated to other countries saw the need to contribute, both to their families that remained and to the development of the country as a whole. Guyana’s economy has been buoyed by the exchanges typified by the

remittances that have flowed from these sources and the numerous groups that have initiated programmes: medical visits, educational exchanges and poverty alleviation projects, to name a few, that have eased the strain of living.

The country still remains one of the most beautiful and blessed; the people still renowned for their legendary hospitality. With its numerous waterways and diversity of flora and fauna,

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GUYANA

Towering gracefully above the bustling streets of Georgetown, St George’s Anglican Cathedral is a vision of intricate timberwork and soaring arches. Consecrated in 1894, the cathedral has stood witness to 130 years of Guyanese history, from colonial times to the modern day. It remains an active place of worship where its high nave resonates with hymns and prayers, while offering a haven of tranquillity amidst the city’s vibrant hum.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

Barbecue chicken on a grand scale; and a reasuring hand on one of life’s many journeys.

PHOTOS: IAN BRIERLEY

Journey to school amid the bustling environment of Main Street in the capital.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

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GUYANA

A trip from Georgetown to Lethem by minibus is a 340-mile journey that takes around 16 hours during the dry season.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

Jhandi are colourful prayer flags that are flown especially during Hindu religious festivals.

They are believed to bring good luck and prosperity, and are often seen as a symbol of faith and devotion.

PHOTO: IAN BRIERLEY

Guyana has, without doubt, some of the most engaging landscapes. Located in an area that does not experience hurricanes or earthquakes, tornados or tsunamis, flooding is quite possibly the only major natural catastrophe with which Guyana has had to contend. Because the coastal plain, where the vast majority of the population lives, is below sea level, this can be a serious problem on the relatively few occasions when there is protracted rainfall.

This coastal plain is protected from flooding along much of its length by a seawall, canals and kokers which regulate the flow of water according to the tides. Excessive flooding is usually the result of storms that can last for several days and so impede the removal of water from the land facilitated by the drainage network. But because

this is not a regular occurrence, ways to cope with the inconvenience have been found when it does occur.

The abundance of fresh produce, sugar and rice, much more than can be consumed, means that with the proper systems and infrastructure the country can indeed become one of the major players in the agricultural sector.

Harnessing its natural resources of gold, bauxite, precious and semi-precious stones and recent finds of oil reserves could be a signal that Guyana is poised for the next phase of its development.

There is much to celebrate and much on which to reflect. There is so much more that still needs to be done and so much more that could have been achieved, had there been the will and the resources. The hope, therefore, is that Guyanese will see this as an opportunity to re-evaluate this journey, keep doing the things that have garnered the best results for all and do away with those things that have been detrimental to progress as a nation.

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Guyana at 50: Reflection, Celebration and Inspiration Hardback, £30.00 / US $55.00

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THE ENVIRONMENT

Voyage of resilience for small island states

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Small island developing states (SIDS) will experience considerable economic and social consequences due to climate change.

PHOTO: CRISTOFER MAXIMILIAN

cross the vast expanse of the world’s oceans, a tapestry of island nations endures. These are the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a group of fifty-seven countries, each one a microcosm of biodiversity and vibrant cultures. However, nestled beneath their palm-fringed shores lay unique challenges – vulnerabilities etched by isolation, limited resources and an existential threat from climate change.

Yet, amid the whispers of rising seas and the murmurs of economic isolation, their resilience rings loud through three past conferences – the International Conferences on SIDS – and which now look towards the fourth conference which is being hosted by Antigua and Barbuda.

With its theme, ‘Charting the Course Toward Resilient Prosperity’, the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States, taking place in Antigua in May, serves as a clarion call, urging the world to stand in solidarity with SIDS as they navigate the choppy waters of climate change, economic volatility and resource scarcity.

Born in the wake of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the SIDS conferences are a testament to the unwavering determination of these island nations to forge their own sustainable future. The Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) in 1994, laid the cornerstone and highlighted the challenges of limited resources, isolation and environmental fragility. Mauritius, in 2004, saw the BPOA refined, with a focus on climate change and good governance. Then, in 2014, Samoa marked a pivotal shift with the SAMOA Pathway, recognising the urgency of climate action and the need for global partnerships.

The achievements of the SIDS movement demonstrate this collective spirit. The Mauritius Strategy for Implementation, for instance, saw SIDS spearhead advancements in renewable energy deployment, with some islands even exceeding global targets. In the aftermath of

devastating natural disasters, SIDS communities have shown a remarkable capacity for rapid reconstruction and resourcefulness.

Yet, challenges remain. The goals set by the Paris Agreement in 2015, hang precariously in the balance, and the spectre of rising sea levels continues to cast a long shadow. And ensuring equitable access to climate finance and bridging the technological divide are also critical hurdles to overcome.

The aspirations of the SIDS4 conference are ambitious but necessary. It aims to galvanise global action on key priorities like ocean health, renewable energy, disaster preparedness, innovative financing mechanisms and economic diversification. It seeks to unlock the boundless potential of the ‘blue economy’, tapping into the wealth of marine resources while safeguarding the delicate ecosystems that sustain life.

With its focus on innovation and partnerships, the conference presents a pivotal opportunity to showcase the pioneering spirit of small island developing states, their willingness to embrace green technologies and forge alliances for blue growth. It is a chance to bridge the gap between international commitments and on-the-ground implementation, ensuring that resources reach the communities that need them most.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The vulnerabilities of SIDS are a global challenge requiring concerted efforts and innovative solutions.” And the world has heeded the call.

Organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stand shoulder-to-shoulder with SIDS, providing crucial technical assistance and financial resources. Civil society groups and Indigenous communities lend their voices and expertise, weaving threads of local knowledge and sustainable practices into the tapestry of resilience.

Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, declared that, “SIDS are not Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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THE ENVIRONMENT

Environmental changes that are expected to affect the Caribbean include stronger hurricanes, longer dry seasons, shorter wet seasons and a rise in sea level.

PHOTO: JOSEPH JONES

victims. They are pioneers in sustainable development, demonstrating innovation and resilience in the face of adversity.” Such sentiments are echoed by Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), who emphasises that, “SIDS solutions can offer invaluable lessons for the whole world.”

This spirit of resilience resonates with Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, who stated that, “SIDS4 provides a unique opportunity to chart a course towards a secure and brighter future for all island nations.”

The road ahead is not without its challenges.

Rising sea levels, economic volatility, the everpresent threat of climate disasters and the lingering impacts of the pandemic, continue to cast long shadows. Yet, the spirit of SIDS remains undimmed. As world leaders gather in Antigua and Barbuda, they carry the hopes and aspirations of island nations, who are united in their pursuit of a sustainable future.

The 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) takes place in Antigua and Barbuda’s capital, St John’s, from 27 to 30 May 2024.

The theme for the conference is ‘Charting the Course Toward Resilient Prosperity’.

Hurricane Irma’s devastating impact on Barbuda Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 hurricane that pummelled Barbuda on 6 September 2017 and left behind a trail of destruction. Known for its pristine beaches and laid-back charm, Antigua’s sister island bore the brunt of the storm, suffering widespread damage and leaving its residents grappling with immense hardship.

Irma damaged or destroyed 95 per cent of the structures on Barbuda and rendered the island’s sole airport and much of its infrastructure inoperative, which further hampered relief efforts.

The island’s entire population of approximately 1,800 residents was evacuated following the storm, seeking refuge in neighbouring Antigua which remained just outside of Irma’s path of destruction.

Despite the devastation, the people of Barbuda displayed remarkable resilience and came together to support each other, clearing debris, sharing resources and rebuilding their lives. International 22

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aid also poured in, providing crucial assistance in the reconstruction process.

Hurricane Irma serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of small island nations to climate change and extreme weather events. However, it also stands as a testament to the unwavering spirit and resilience of the Barbudan people. Their story of recovery offers valuable lessons in disaster preparedness, community collaboration and the importance of international cooperation in tackling the challenges posed by a changing climate.

The devastation caused by the hurricane led to a complete government overhaul in Barbuda, with renewed focus on disaster preparedness and sustainable development.

While the scars of Hurricane Irma remain etched in Barbuda’s history, the island’s journey of recovery serves as an inspiration for communities facing similar challenges worldwide.

THE ENVIRONMENT

Dominica ushers in a new era of marine conservation

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n a ground-breaking move that sets a precedent for marine conservation, Dominica has established the world’s first marine protected area specifically designated for sperm whales. This sanctuary, spanning an impressive 788 square kilometres (304 square miles) of the nation’s western waters, represents a bold step towards safeguarding these magnificent creatures and the delicate marine ecosystem they inhabit.

The newly designated sperm whale reserve encompasses critical nursing and feeding grounds for these gentle giants, providing a safe haven for a population of approximately 300 individuals that belong to the Eastern Caribbean Clan. This endangered group has faced numerous threats, including entanglement in fishing gear, collisions

with ships and the detrimental effects of climate change. The establishment of the reserve is a crucial step towards ensuring the long-term survival of these iconic marine mammals.

While the reserve is primarily focused on protecting sperm whales, it also aims to strike a balance with the needs of local artisanal fishermen.

The government of Dominica has pledged to work closely with fishing communities to develop sustainable practices that minimise their impact on the marine ecosystem. This collaborative approach will ensure that the long-standing tradition of artisanal fishing can continue to thrive alongside the protection of sperm whales.

The creation of the sperm whale reserve is expected to further bolster Dominica’s reputation as a leading eco-tourism destination. The

Not only a whale-watching trip, but also a journey into the realms of the Caribbean’s magnificent hidden giants

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THE ENVIRONMENT

Dominica deserves its place among the world’s leading dive destinations with sites like Champagne Reef and Scotts Head Marine Park that are teeming with vibrant coral gardens.

PHOTO: SIMON WALSH

opportunity to observe these awe-inspiring creatures in their natural habitat will undoubtedly attract nature enthusiasts from around the globe.

However, Dominica remains committed to responsible whale-watching practices that prioritise the well-being of the whales and minimise any potential disruption to their environment.

This pioneering initiative not only underscores Dominica’s dedication to marine conservation but also reinforces the nation’s broader commitment to sustainable eco-tourism. Dominica has long been recognised for its pristine natural environment, lush rainforests and diverse wildlife.

The establishment of the sperm whale reserve further cements the country’s position as a global leader in eco-tourism, demonstrating its unwavering commitment to protecting its natural treasures for future generations.

Beyond its captivating marine life, Dominica is also a leading destination for dive tourism. The island’s underwater world is teeming with marine life and vibrant coral reefs, making it a haven for underwater enthusiasts.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has expressed his pride in Dominica’s leadership in marine conservation, stating that, “The establishment of the sperm whale reserve is a testament to our unwavering commitment to protecting our natural heritage. We are committed to ensuring that these majestic creatures can continue to thrive in our waters for generations to come.”

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Other local officials have also echoed the Prime Minister’s sentiments, emphasising the importance of balancing conservation with the needs of local communities. “We are working closely with our fishing communities to develop sustainable practices that ensure the long-term viability of artisanal fishing while also protecting the sperm whales,” stated an official from Dominica’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Dominica’s creation of the world’s first marine protected area for sperm whales is a landmark achievement in marine conservation. This initiative not only protects these endangered creatures but also highlights Dominica’s commitment to sustainable eco-tourism practices.

With its pristine natural environment, diverse wildlife and world-class whale-watching and dive tourism opportunities, Dominica is a true ecoparadise. As the nation continues to forge a path towards sustainable development, the protection of its marine treasures, including the majestic sperm whales, remains at the forefront of its conservation efforts.

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Dominica: Nature Island of the Caribbean Hardback, £25.00 / US $50.00

TOURISM

The Bahamas and the birth of Caribbean tourism Godfrey Eneas

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s a British colony in the West Indies, the socio-economic development path of The Bahamas was very different from its sister colonies. The British West Indies came to the world’s attention as the ‘Sugar Islands’ as a direct result of the slave trade which fuelled sugarcane production across the region. Prior to the trading of enslaved Africans, Portuguese Madeira was the leading sugar producer.

In 1625, with the entrance of the British to the West Indies, Barbados and St Kitts dominated the market followed by Jamaica in 1655. Sugarcane was one of the raw materials that would become the basis for the Industrial Revolution in Europe, thereby propelling Europe to global dominance.

Owing to the topography of The Bahamas and the climatic and agronomic conditions, commercial sugarcane production for the export market during the days of slavery was not a profitable crop. After the War of Independence in 1776 between the British and its American colonies, and as early as 1773, thousands of British settlers in the Southern states began abandoning their plantations, choosing to reside in The Bahamas and other West Indian colonies. They were called ‘Loyalists’ and brought their slaves, the agricultural technology and their application of chattel slavery to this new society to which they had emigrated.

Most of the Loyalists settled in the southeastern Bahamas, setting up plantations to

From the footprints of indigenous peoples to the sun-kissed shores welcoming modern travellers, the Caribbean’s tourism story is one of constant evolution.

PHOTO: BUCKEYEBETH

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TOURISM

cultivate cotton under chattel slavery conditions like they had done in the southern states of the US. It should be noted that the mass arrival of enslaved Africans brought in by the Loyalists, changed the ethnic composition of The Bahamas, and Africans soon became the most populous ethnic group.

The agricultural technology the Loyalists brought enabled them to establish 8,000 acres of cotton on 128 plantations. Yields were high in the first two or three seasons and islands like Exuma were exporting cotton directly to England from Georgetown, the island’s capital and main port.

In 1789, the cotton crop was ravaged by a chenille worm infestation which destroyed cotton as an export commodity. By 1800, the industry was on its knees and many plantation owners abandoned their estates and became absentee landlords by moving back to the US or settling in Britain, thereby ending cotton’s reign as the ‘slave crop’ in The Bahamas.

The 1800s were a tumultuous period for the Caribbean, as slavery and the slave trade were experiencing their last stand.

The Haitian Revolt against France from 1791 to 1804 resulted in Haiti securing its independence and becoming the world’s first Black Republic.

In 1807, Britain’s Abolitionist leader, William Wilberforce, despite staunch opposition from the West Indies planter class, successfully convinced the British Parliament to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, ending the inhumane trafficking of humans from Africa to the New World.

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The Haitian Revolution and the abolition of the slave trade were followed by a series of slave rebellions across the British West Indies. Enslaved people, anticipating the imminent arrival of freedom, were met with continued subjugation at the time of Abolition. In response, they engaged in acts of resistance, including pillaging plantations and destroying sugarcane crops. The three most notable slave revolts were Bussa’s Rebellion in Barbados in 1816; the Demerara Rebellion in Guyana in 1823; and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt in 1831-1832. Emancipation in the British West Indies was finally achieved on 1 August 1834.

In contrast to other British West Indian colonies where the planter class held sway, The Bahamas experienced a distinct political and economic dynamic under the control of the merchant class. This shift in power was primarily due to its proximity to the United States and its involvement in illicit activities, including gunrunning during the War of Independence.

Recognising the limitations of relying solely on export agriculture, with cotton as a prime example, the merchants shifted their focus towards tourism. In a move to boost this venture, the Bahamian government partnered with Samuel Cunard’s steamship line in 1859 to establish a regular passenger service between New York and Nassau. This initiative proved highly successful, attracting approximately five hundred visitors annually until the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1873, which significantly impacted tourism arrivals.

The global tourism industry has played a significant role in shaping the Caribbean’s landscape, with both island and continental destinations offering a diverse range of experiences for visitors.

Despite efforts to promote tourism in the early 1900s, The Bahamas faced a series of economic setbacks between the 1850s and 1930s. These challenges included a blockade running in the 1860s, a decline in agricultural exports, rumrunning during the Prohibition era in the United States (1920-1933), and the Great Depression (1929-1939).

To address the socio-economic challenges following World War II, the Bahamas government rejuvenated the Bahamas Development Board, established in 1914 as a driving force for economic growth. The post-war tourism product was centred

LEFT: Junkanoo celebrations take place during the Christmas period and feature elaborate costumes, intricate masks and pulsating rhythms.

PHOTO: J C DONELSON

TOURISM

Post-war tourism to The Bahamas promoted sun, sand and sea, much like it does today.

PHOTO: DOC LAWSON

on sun, sand and sea, with the eventual addition of casino gambling and the promotion of The Bahamas as a tax haven. The local tourism sector experienced exponential growth with arrivals increasing over thirtyfold from 32,000 visitors in 1949 to a remarkable one million by 1968. Since then, the tourism sector has continued to experience impressive growth.

The post-colonial Caribbean has evolved into a complex geopolitical space due to the varied political structures that govern the region’s states.

This scenario stems from the fact that the colonial powers that ruled the region still remain and have retained political control of it dependencies and overseas territories. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are under the jurisdiction of the United States.

In contrast, the two longest-standing independent states in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago – have only been independent for sixty years. Among the former British colonies, four have adopted a republican form of government (Dominica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago), while eight others have retained the British Monarch as their sovereign and Head of State.

The Caribbean’s geographical reach has gradually expanded to encompass the Central American states that share the Caribbean Sea and

have increasingly embraced a Caribbean identity.

The global tourism industry has played a significant role in shaping the Caribbean’s landscape, with both island and continental destinations offering a diverse range of experiences for visitors.

From the footprints of indigenous peoples to the sun-kissed shores welcoming modern travellers, the Caribbean’s tourism story is one of constant evolution. While the challenges remain – environmental considerations, economic fluctuations and responsible development – the allure of the region endures. Each grain of sand whispers of vibrant cultures, diverse landscapes and an irresistible rhythm that continues to captivate hearts and ignite wanderlust. However, one thing remains certain: the magic of the Caribbean beckons, promising unforgettable experiences for generations to come.

GODFREY ENEAS was born in The Bahamas and is acknowledged as an expert on Caribbean agriculture.

He has represented The Bahamas and the Caribbean on various regional and hemispheric boards and was appointed by the government of The Bahamas as Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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BIOGRAPHY

England: The bad “mother” country Max Farrar Arthur France arrived in Leeds in the north of England from Nevis in the late 1950s and soon began to organise members of the local Caribbean community into a united force for social progress against a backdrop of discrimination and bigotry. His biography reflects upon the struggle for justice and equality and serves as a poignant narrative about ‘race’ in post-war Britain.

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rthur France was 22 years old when, on 13th September 1957, he took the bumpy crossing from Nevis to St Kitts, where he got a plane to Barbados. He boarded the SS Soriento en route to Genoa in Italy, then he went by train to Paris, and then to France’s coastal town of Calais. He still remembers the excitement of being on a train for the first time. A ferry took him to Dover.

Academic books call it ‘chain migration’. Not the chains of slavery – they mean the invisible chain that links one migrant to another as they make their decision to move. Arthur France was in a family chain: to be specific, his sister Elaine had migrated to the north of England, to Leeds, in the county now called West Yorkshire, a couple of years before Arthur took that momentous trip to the same place.

side of the road and he couldn’t think what they were there for. Why would anyone sit on a bench in this cold weather? “It’s ridiculous.”

But the real disappointment was the contrast between what he had been taught about England at school in Nevis and the reality he encountered.

As soon as they arrived in London, his companions on the journey from the Caribbean dispersed all over the country, while the English were rushing to and fro without a word.

“We had a British education. I enjoyed reading English literature and learning about the Royal Family. We were told this was the Mother Country.

But when I got to Leeds the dream was slashed. It was cold and people were unfriendly. You expected people to be normal, but they weren’t.”

Normal in Nevis is a friendly greeting to everyone you see; that civility disappeared from English cities long ago.

Edwin Smith, also from Nevis, said: “We had heard fantastic stories about England, like how money was growing on trees in the backyard ...

I

t was quite a shock for Arthur, arriving in England. Everyone who has migrated from the Caribbean mentions how cold it was. White Brits think October is quite warm, but nothing prepares someone from the regions of real sunshine for the pallid skies and chill winds of Leeds in autumn. Arthur saw the benches on the

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Notices such as these were a regular feature of life for Britain’s Caribbean migrants.

BIOGRAPHY

The others living there were from Caribbean islands – “very friendly” – and they looked after Arthur and made him feel at home. “We had lots of visitors because it was a Black man’s house.”

He was too young to be with the big men and too old to be with the children, so Mr James Condor, known as Major, one of the older generation, would always make fun of him for being “in no man’s land.” As usual, Arthur was amused each time Mr Condor repeated his joke, which was quite often, over many years.

On his first Saturday night one of the guys visiting them said he had been here for two years; another said he’d been here for four – “I thought they must be crazy.” Already Arthur was thinking he wanted to go home. He remembered another guy saying “England is like an open prison. They don’t call you but you can’t get out.”

Arthur thought he was quite right. “Everyone was saying they are going back home.” He said he didn’t regret the decision to move to England, but it “Seemed to be a very funny system.” He found that he could cope with this strange system because he was living with other West Indians, who were very friendly and helpful, even the ones he didn’t know from back home in Nevis.

Arthur pictured in 1960.

In those early days, he and his friends would race around Leeds on their motorbikes.

Or the streets were paved with gold. People were very disappointed when they came here [to Leeds].” His girlfriend, Syvilla said: “When I came here, it was a horrible place ... The houses were disgusting; England was filthy. I cried for months to go home. I was depressed. It was easy to get in, but hard to get out.”

Mr Pennycook had come from Jamaica to Leeds a few years before Arthur. He owned one of the mansions on Chapeltown Road, once lived in by the newly-prosperous English middle classes who built this neighbourhood towards the end of the 19th Century. Lots of the new arrivals could find a room to stay at Mr Pennycook’s while they sorted themselves out. Arthur said, “Pennycook’s was such an important house for the Black settlers that it should have been preserved.” People who had been here for a while would then help others to find a place of their own.

But Arthur was able to go straight to sister Elaine’s. He shared a room with George and Elaine for a week, and then got a room of his own at 1 Hamilton Avenue, a house owned by Oliver Gaskin from St Kitts. There were five bedsits – while not as big as Pennycook’s, the houses in Hamilton Avenue are substantial, late-Victorian terraces with large rooms.

T

he difficulties of (un)settlement did not go away, but Arthur quickly got a job. His sister Elaine was a secretary at Union Cold Storage in Hunslet. She had contacts and she got him a job at British Railways. Each day he’d report for work at Leeds station and they would send him to Huddersfield to work as a relief porter. He packed containers and loaded the delivery lorries.

He was the only Black person in that workplace, but the station master was a nice man and the other workers were quite friendly. As Arthur says, “They were welcoming and we had a good laugh.”

It is likely that Arthur’s friendly nature and his unfailing ability to see the funny side of life, along with his willingness to work hard, made it easy for him get on with the white people at the railways. But overall, there was a great deal of prejudice against Black people at that time.

READ MORE...

Speaking Truth to Power: The Life and Times of an African Caribbean British Man

by Max Farrar Paperback, £13.99 / US $21.00 eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99

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BIOGRAPHY / HISTORY

A woman of extraordinary creativity and ambition Asher Hoyles and Martin Hoyles

U

na Marson came to England from Jamaica in 1932 and was already a successful journalist and had also published two volumes of poetry. The year she left Jamaica, her play, At What a Price was staged in Kingston to public acclaim. When she arrived in London she soon got involved with The League of Coloured Peoples and edited a number of issues of the organisation’s official publication, The Keys. In one issue she wrote, “The Negro world must come together. And who is going to do these things for us? We have to do it ourselves.”

Marson soon realised the racism of many of the people she had once looked up to and wrote a damning poem which was published in the first edition of The Keys: They called me ‘Nigger’, Those little white urchins, They laughed and shouted As I passed along the street, They flung at me: ‘Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!’

What made me keep my fingers From choking the words in their throats?

What made my face grow hot, The blood boil in my veins And tears spring to my eyes?

What made me go to my room And sob my heart away Because white urchins Called me ‘Nigger’?

It is likely that Marcus Garvey read her poem, for he wrote in 1933: “Our countrywoman Miss Una Marson went to England some time ago to be disillusioned. She thought she was going to a country where she would be accepted on equal terms with those who built it and made its civilization possible. Like most of our race, she thought we have nothing else to do than to project

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Una Marson’s most notable achievement was her work with the BBC, where she became the corporation’s first Black radio producer.

ourselves into the civilization of other people and to claim all its rights. When she found a contrary attitude, she rebelled and wrote some very nasty things about the English.”

Marson developed an interest in PanAfricanism and in 1934 met the King of Ghana.

After the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, she offered her help to the Ethiopian Minister to London, Charles Martin, and went on to work as personal secretary to Haile Selassie when he fled to England.

BIOGRAPHY / HISTORY

Una Marson was the first Black woman to be invited to the League of Nations in Geneva and in 1935 she was the Jamaican delegate to an International Women’s Conference in Istanbul attended by 300 women from 30 different countries. Her speech was greeted with tumultuous applause and the Manchester Guardian reported that this “negro woman of African origin from the former slave world of Jamaica, brought a new note into the assembly and astonished them by the vigour of her intellect and by her feminist optimism”. In her book, The Life of Una Marson, 1905-65 (1998), Delia Jarret-Macauley writes, “In the space of three years Una had become the leading black feminist activist in London.” And in West Indian Intellectuals in Britain (2003), Alison Donnell adds, “What is most daring about her contribution was her willingness to break the masculine consensus of the West Indian intellectual community.”

Marson was still very much concerned with conditions in Jamaica and gave evidence to the Moyne Commission which was investigating the causes of the political disturbances of the 1930s throughout the Caribbean. On a return trip to Jamaica in 1937, she wrote an article in which she said: “Are we the younger generation to remain resigned to the sham and shallowness of the artificial life into which we have been cast?

Are we to remain strangers in our own land, eaters of crumbs that fall from the tables of others when we have it in our power to sit at a table well garnished by our own hands?”

Perhaps her most famous achievement was her work with the BBC where, in 1941, she became a

full-time programme assistant for Calling the West Indies. This led two years later to her devising the radio programme Caribbean Voices which launched the careers of numerous Caribbean authors including Derek Walcott, George Lamming and Sam Selvon. The Barbadian poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite called the programme “the single most important literary catalyst for Caribbean creative and critical writing in English”.

Marson continued to produce the programme until 1945 when she returned to Jamaica, where she was greeted by huge crowds.

In 1949, she became the organising secretary for the Pioneer Press, Jamaica’s first serious publishing house, which was the first to publish work by Jamaican poet, author and educator, Louise Bennett.

Alison Donnell sums up Una Marson’s achievements: “She was a woman of extraordinary creativity and ambition, qualities which she directed towards the great causes of her time: the advancement of women’s rights; the struggle against colonialism; and the strengthening of cultural and literary nationalism.”

READ MORE...

Before Windrush: West Indians in Britain

by Asher & Martin Hoyles Paperback, £9.99 / US $15.00

A lost and found voice of Black Britain Published in the United Kingdom between 1933 and 1939, The Keys was the official publication of the League of Coloured Peoples, a British civil rights organisation. The quarterly journal was established and edited by the organisation’s founder, the Jamaican-born doctor and activist, Harold Moody.

The Keys aimed to address “the racial misunderstanding” that was prevalent in society, both in Britain and beyond. It published articles on a wide range of topics including race relations, colonialism and African and Caribbean culture.

The journal also featured reviews of books and films, and poetry and short stories by Black writers.

The publication was an important platform for Black voices in Britain during the inter-war

period and it helped to raise awareness of the challenges faced by Black people and to promote Black culture and heritage. It also played an important role in the development of Black consciousness and the anti-colonial movement in Britain.

The Keys ceased publication in 1939 due to the outbreak of World War II, but its legacy continues to this day. The journal is still an important source of information for historians and researchers.

In 2021, the British Newspaper Archive digitised and published all 26 issues of The Keys therefore making it accessible to anyone interested in learning more about Black British history and culture.

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OBITUARY

Pioneering scholar of indentureship David Dabydeen

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anding in Trinidad in August 2023, a slow wave of sadness washed over me because in the twenty times and more that I have visited Trinidad, I have almost always met up with Brinsley Samaroo. He once put me up in his house many years ago, in the 1980s, and more recently his daughter, Kavita, treated my son when he had a brief bout of illness in Port of Spain. Many a times when I landed at the airport Brinsley would be there to meet me, drive me to wherever I was staying, and often to the balcony of his own house where he would invite along students who were hoping to be admitted to Warwick University, so that I could be introduced to them. So it was understandable that, at the airport, I was affected by a sense of loss, a feeling of absence, because to my mind, Brinsley was Trinidad, he was a perennial presence, he was always there for his family, friends, colleagues, students. And for me, I could always lean on him, I could always phone or email him for advice, direction, contacts, and he always obliged. It is not surprising therefore that when the very first issue of the Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies was published in September 2021 it was dedicated to Brinsley Samaroo, our pioneering scholar, our constant supporter.

I first met Brinsley in the 1980s in Trinidad and it was he who impressed upon me the desirability of Warwick University organising scholarship on indentureship, since the university had set up a Centre for Caribbean Studies in 1984.

Brinsley and I decided to put together a book entitled India in the Caribbean (dedicated to Joan, Brinsley’s wife) in anticipation of a conference on indentureship I was organising at Warwick in 1988 to mark the 150th anniversary of Indian arrival in the Caribbean; the first ships landing the indentured workers being the Whitby and Hesperus. Many years later, on discovering the diary written by the ship’s surgeon on board the Hesperus on its first journey from Liverpool to 32

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Professor Brinsley Samaroo was committed to Indian Indentureship studies, and his contribution to West Indian history and cultural studies was immense

India then British Guiana (1837/1838), I immediately called upon Brinsley to co-edit its publication. Brinsley was the person you called up first because of his shining scholarship as well as his steadfast commitment to indentureship studies. The surgeon’s diary was edited, annotated and published, the long title being The First Crossing. Being the Diary of Theophilus Richmond, Ship’s Surgeon aboard the Hesperus 1837-1838. It is freely available on the internet (Caribbeanpress.org).

To return to the 1980s, we were exceptionally grateful to Hansib Publications for publishing India in the Caribbean in time for the 1988 conference at Warwick. The great Arif Ali, who founded Hansib, didn’t just publish India in the Caribbean but another six books on indentureship to mark the anniversary, including Willi Chen’s King of the Carnival and other Stories. Arif Ali, who used to run a grocery shop in north London, ended up as publisher of Caribbean Times, Asian Times and African Times newspapers. Arif, who hails from Guyana, deserves many accolades.

Instead of a royalty payment for India in the Caribbean, Brinsley asked for, and received, a set

OBITUARY

of encyclopaedias in Arif’s office, which he wanted for his daughter, Kavita, to encourage her to study and to expand her knowledge. Years later, Kavita qualified as a medical doctor.

The Ameena Gafoor Institute’s Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies, in its next issue (due out in June 2024) will be dedicated to Brinsley and to Brij Lal, his friend and fellow pioneer. It will contain essays reflecting on their books and articles. I asked Brinsley, in 2022, to write an autobiographical essay for a book I was co-editing entitled Children of Indenture.

Although he lauded the project he was reluctant to talk about himself. He said he’d rather people just read his books and essays. I persisted and, out of friendship, he acquiesced but sailed in the wind of brevity and sent me a thin piece, with very little about his life and those of his ancestors, but instead, a lot of historical context to developments in Trinidad. I begged him to send me another thousand words, but he sent a few more paragraphs, such was his modesty and selfeffacement. A year later, he died.

I end this brief tribute by quoting a passage from Brinsley’s piece for Children of Indentureship, which will be published in 2024. ***** At Naparima College we had a talented History teacher from British Guiana, Benjamin Yisudas (devotee of Jesus), who taught British History. He was particularly offended by the fulsome praise which our textbook gave to Robert Clive, prominent British plunderer of India, for his heroism in defeating barbarian Indians and for

INDIA IN THE CARIBBEAN Edited by Dr David Dabydeen & Dr Brinsley Samaroo First published in 1987 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in the Caribbean, and reprinted in 2006, this collection of essays, poems and prose is written by leading Indian-Caribbean authors and scholars. They reflect upon Indian history and culture in the Caribbean and celebrate the significant contributions made by Indians to the politics, culture and economic progress of the region.

Indentured Indians occupied the old slave quarters and worked in the sugar plantations, inheriting many of the conditions of servitude of the previously enslaved Africans. This book deals with their subsequent plantation experiences, their active and passive resistance to exploitation, and their efforts at selfbetterment. Indians have been able to make significant, sometimes unique, contributions at every level of Caribbean activity, in spite of the injustice and violence they endured.

his cleansing India of the rampant “corruption” which existed there. Yisudas ordered his students to cross out those pages. Although he had never been to India, he painted a positive picture of Indian civilisation, encouraging his students to go there.

The marked presence of India in my village increased that desire when, therefore, the opportunity presented itself, I applied for a scholarship to study in India in 1960. My application was successful and I was assigned to Hindu College, Delhi University, which I entered in July 1961.

Being a student in India was a glorious experience. One studied the civilisation whilst being a part of it. Our lecturers took us to many significant sites such as Taj Mahal, Emperor Akbar’s multireligious village of Fatehepur Sikri, near Agra, where he encouraged inter-faith dialogue and the old city of Lucknow, venue of the Muharram commemoration since 1793. From here, the observance was taken to the Caribbean since 1845.

Travelling overnight on an Indian train was an unforgettable experience with the sights, sound and tasty delicacies at different stations. One passed through towns whose names had been transferred to the Caribbean: Faizabad, Meerut, Calcutta, Piparo, Kanpur and Bombay. On trains and buses, we travelled through villages from whence Indian flora and fauna were transported to the Caribbean. One travelled through villages where the houses were built on stilts to avoid flood waters. Such houses were replicated in my village in rural Trinidad… For me, the Indian experience was an awakening.

GLIMPSES OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY: The Art of Garnet Ifill Brinsley Samaroo The sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago no longer dominates the landscape, as it had done for more than 200 years. During this gruelling period, African and Indian labourers toiled in the production of ‘brown gold’, particularly, rum and molasses. By the middle of the 20th century, most of the elements of the industry were undergoing significant changes as modern technology replaced older, less efficient modes of production. At this critical juncture of modernisation, Garnet Ifill, a young and visionary photographer, decided to capture the fading heritage.

His unique collection of photographs is, therefore, a permanent reminder of a bygone era. Garnet Ifill is one of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading photographers. In his long career, he has documented much of the history of the sugar industry. This book reflects one dimension of his prolific photography, which was envisioned as early as 1948 when Ifill’s father was employed as a machinist at a sugar factory in central Trinidad.

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FICTION

A cauldron where saints and sinners bare their souls Louis Lee Sing

C

loser to the Church or closer to God?” questioned Nathan as he adjusted his chair, pushing it closer to the table while sitting. As he did so there was a low screeching sound, which echoed throughout the sparsely furnished, single-level dwelling the John family called home.

To the members of the Johns’ inner family, this comment, presented in the form of a question, was Nathan’s way of seeking an engagement – or an argument, depending on your tolerance – for Nathan’s never ending commentaries on the Roman Catholic Church, within their poor, depressed and, as the more candid of their community would boldly state, oppressed neighbourhood.

For Nathan this was not just about getting his sister angry. It had more to do with the debates taking place, not only within his immediate community, but now also the topic of conversation at meal tables within homes, at restaurants and at cafes miles away. Wherever you visited the discussions filled the air, as ordinary people for the first time at last were debating what so many felt but dared not to say, lest they be perceived to be un-Christian and, by extension, un-godly.

Nathan knew more about the discussions taking place than did any of his family members.

He, based on his long articulated views on the church, became the go-to person, as others sought clarity on the issues of the conversations now gripping his community and communities much further afield. Ordinary people, some who could no longer keep ‘still tongues’, vented their anger over the revelations that were coming out each day, of yet another priest who had assaulted or raped a child.

The reports suggested that many of the priests pulled out of the closets of shame were not choosey, as, they suggested the men of cloth attacked little girls as well as little boys. More alarmingly, there was growing evidence they were

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more attracted to little boys. Some wagging tongues proffered, such was the preference of the perverted, depraved and vicious men who preyed on the children of God-fearing parents – many of those parents being mothers who fathered their offspring.

Neither Judith, Nathan’s sister, nor his mother responded to his comment, which to those at the breakfast table was a daily ritual that brother and son Nathan shared with the wider community.

They were bombarded daily by news of the Church, though the John family were not given to entangling other villagers in discussions on less contentious matters or the issues now confronting their Church. The women had absolutely no intention of getting involved in this debate, which both mother and daughter had long ago debated quietly out of the earshot of all others. They had taken the mutually agreed position that whatever happened within the Church were matters for the hierarchy of the Church. Both women shared a strong faith which they believed could not be easily broken.

Nathan was a son and brother, but from an early age he was given to a spirit of recklessness and rebellion. Ruth often wondered if it was punishment for his father’s sins, which were numerous, or indeed her own basketful of so much dirty laundry. In an attempt to atone for her sins, she became fiercely Roman Catholic and worshipped at both the parish church’s several altars as well her own chapel, which she had built and consecrated at the birth of her daughter Judith.

What sins did Ruth commit that placed such a burden on her, that for so many years caused her to light so many candles and in similar measure offer just as many novenas, was something Judith, an all caring and loving daughter, wondered, not once but too many times to recall. Yet she never once enquired of her most loving mother the reasons for her unrequited devotion to the Church, the use of wax candles of various colours and her

Angry with their religions and the wrongdoings of so many clerics, two young people decide to address the status quo. Set in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, Port-ofSpain, they seek to attract many others to their cause and come up with the notion to stage and host a ‘conference of the un-godly’.

FICTION

devotion to novenas. Often she accompanied her mother to churches to conduct her rituals of prayer.

These visits to the church altars invariably meant Mother Ruth prayed, while Judith sat and observed in silence.

Over a long period of being a silent participant, Judith began to wonder what the heavenly Father had in store for her. Some days she felt as if he had abandoned her and, though she never once expressed her thoughts aloud, she wondered if she, like her mother, was being punished for the deeds of her parents. On such days, these thoughts of sad enquiry often came when she looked at herself in the full length mirror, which was mounted at the end of the corridor on the wall between her mother’s bedroom and hers.

Of the three rooms within the home Nathan was assigned the first room at the head of the corridor, he being the only male resident within the family home. The house stood on the cul-desac of a short street, which housed thirteen family homes and carried the postal number 13 Second Street, Los Bajos. Second Street was one of the twenty-two streets which formed the community

of Los Bajos. To suggest Los Bajos was a wellplanned community would be to err on the side of the planners who, like so many government officials, took the easy way out. The streets were all laced on the left-hand side of the Eastern Main Road, as you headed east coming from the westerly direction. You entered each street and you departed each street from the Eastern Main Road, which became busier as the years went by and the well-being of some citizens improved.

With such improvement each bought a car, be it new, second, third, fourth or fifth hand.

Everyone saw the need for owning a vehicle, with the uncertainty of public transportation, and the people of Trinidad bought such cars as their wallets could afford. No one at 13, Second Street, Los Bajos, had the means to afford even a fifthhand car, and so they got by using their feet, or ‘P2’ as the villagers referred to those members of the community who by force of circumstance had to walk to where they wished to go.

This thing of walking was another of Nathan’s bug bears, and he would raise these issues with Ruth. The family’s lack of their own means of

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transportation was often raised but never debated, almost as often as he sought to lure his mother and sister into discussion on the holy, or maybe not so holy, Church.

Living on Second Street meant Ruth and daughter Judith had to negotiate twenty streets, or blocks of 6,000 feet each or thereabouts, each time she visited her church, which stood on the outskirts of the unnamed housing community that formed part of Los Bajos.

The government housing company, the National Housing Agency, having used most of the available lands to erect 2,700 houses, on reaching street twenty-two left a plot of land big enough to accommodate another seven houses.

But its Board of Directors agreed one rainy evening at the Head Office at South Quay, Portof-Spain, that it had neither the time nor the funds to build the infrastructure required for the seven or so houses. As one member of the Board of Directors noted, “It would cost us more to construct the street than it would cost us to build the houses!” With that statement and that statement alone, the remaining seven homes, which would have provided shelter to seven families or forty-nine needy persons, the Board of Directors of the National Housing Agency closed the construction at Los Bajos. Without knowing it at the time, they had opened up the opportunity for the Roman Catholics to find yet another location to establish a church and with it a place of Christian worship.

When the deed for the seven lots of land was signed and passed onto the local Archbishop, it counted for the sixty-second church owned and operated by the Roman Catholics within a land mass of 1,864 square miles.

Catholics were in Trinidad from the moment the infamous Christopher Columbus – lost at sea, frightened, troubled and bewitched – stumbled accidentally onto its shores. So relieved was he, it is recorded, the first thing he did was to kneel and give thanks. He changed the name of the island from Cairi Iere, which was the name given to it by its first people (the Arawak), to the very Christian name Trinidad, named for the symbols of the three mountain ranges he saw in all their glory; hence the Trinity.

Los Bajos became an important church parish for the Catholics in the east of Trinidad, and welcomed all who would come from the newly established, unnamed twenty-two streets of residences and the many smaller surrounding communities which encircled it. Within this parish, the John family of Ruth, Judith and Nathan grew 36

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to become an established family presence over the decade or so since the church first opened its doors.

It was within the walls of the very modest structure that Nathan was initiated into the faith for which he now had so many misgivings. At six years old, Nathan, holding Judith’s hand while Ruth held the other, walked with his family into the newly constructed Catholic church, largely in response to the paper flyer placed in their mailbox.

The flyer was signed by Father Tobias, the first clergyman to be assigned to manage the affairs of the new parish and the leader of the church. It appealed to all who received and read the flyer to come celebrate the consecration of the small modest structure.

The flyer did not suggest that only Catholics were invited. It read all were invited, and Ruth, besieged with her domestic and other struggles, saw this as an invitation from God. She believed with all her heart that the piece of paper she held in her left hand was signed by Father Tobias, but written by God. It mattered not that the church was not a cathedral, but was, as her immediate neighbour to the right of No. 13 described the church, “a box house,” meaning it was exceptionally small.

From the day it became public knowledge that the vacant land had been given to the church, there were heated discussions on the issue of the use of the available land. Some villagers argued that the space ought to have been given for a playing field, while others strongly articulated that, given the number of children of primary school age, the government should have built a primary school.

When the brouhaha of whether a school was more important than a church died a natural death, like all village issues, some consoled themselves with the belief that maybe the church would build both a church building and a school house, given the size of the lot of land made available to it.

Through all of this Ruth said nothing, and as always kept her own council.

It was four weeks before the opening of the church when the common leaflet of an invitation arrived. It was classier than the ordinary circulars regularly left in the mailbox by government officials and other establishments wanting to advertise their wide and varied assortment of goods and services. Many of these paper advertisements or notices invariably went unread and were often simply crumpled in her left hand and eventually found safe storage in Ruth’s kitchen garbage can, which she called a dustbin and was located immediately outside her kitchen

Catholics were in Trinidad from the moment the infamous Christopher Columbus – lost at sea, frightened, troubled and bewitched – stumbled accidentally onto its shores.

So relieved was he, it is recorded, the first thing he did was to kneel and give thanks.

FICTION

or side door. The garbage bin was so positioned that you could not miss it either entering or leaving the home. Painted in fire engine red with white letters which shouted, ‘Johns’.

The Johns’ kitchen door was also the main portal used to enter and egress their home. This was considered a security measure by Ruth’s husband of a very short-lived marriage. Anthony was his name, but Ruth and the neighbours on the street all called him Tony. For a while, albeit a short while, Tony played a pivotal role in the life of his newly minted family.

Tony was, during this period, everything a young wife and mother wanted in a husband and father. It was Tony’s belief that bad people would choose the front door to enter and so he installed a number of bolts and other locking devices on the inside of the door, thus making it mandatory that the John family exited their home using the side door. Or, as Judith insisted: “It is the kitchen door Mother,” in reference to the only entrance and exit to their home.

Judith believed that she could wish into life the opening of the front door to their home. She

often thought about the closed front door, as well as so many small but unnerving matters she came to confront as she grew into womanhood. All these idiosyncrasies were throwbacks to the time when her father and her mother were a smiling, if not laughing, happy young couple. How she wished she could wave her hand as if it was a magical wand, and completely erase the garbage left behind after what appeared at times to have been a period of untold bliss within the John household. A household and a marriage, which promised Ruth so much heaven and only delivered hell.

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Closer to the Church: A Novel

by Louis Lee Sing Paperback, £11.99 / US $18.00 eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99

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SHORT STORY

King of the Carnival

Willi Chen ‘King of the Carnival’ is part of a unique collection of short stories that captures the violence, trickery, pathos and racial comedy of Trinidadian society. Written in a great sweep of energy and from a deeply humane perspective, the characters are invested with the capacity for laughter, suffering and redemption.

S

tooped in the darkness of his paper shack, Santo the Maskman spat through the doorway and yawned. Below him, way down the Hill, the city buzzed and came to its awakening like a huge leviathan, the streetlights dulled by the dawn that heralded the bands, Casablanca, Free French and Tokyo, and even Merry Makers, abandoning their camps that had smoked in the months of heat and fever until now. The hordes, the waves of dancing feet marched out, thronging the streets, clogging the freeways in thousands amidst the thunderous din of steel and tin and in some places, the shattering shards of glass and bottles.

So the war had started, the pitched battles begun between the bands, stirring the bitter dyes of animosity and hate. But those were the battles of the boys from the Hill, from across the River and further up district, from smaller panyards. He had his own private battleground elsewhere – in the savannah, beneath glaring stage lights that broke in shafts of lighted motes over the judges’ heads.

And so he had trudged home, Santo, head bowed in defeat, humiliated, the aimless shuffle of feet, dragging, not knowing their way home over cobblestoned paths of broken twigs and dried leaves. Through the stench of dog droppings and

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the dank odour of clothes-washings stagnant and frothy settling in cold ravines. Up Piccadilly street with Basillon on the right and on the other side, streets steep and slippery, curving like Belgrade and Harpe Place. He wore a heart, as heavy as his shattered headpiece.

“They make the white man first and I not even placing,” he mused, sitting glum in the paltry confines of his paper throne, flimsy like the futile thoughts hovering over his weary head, as he gazed into the cityscape from the Hill.

This Hill – the castle on his domain out of which skulkers and badjohns had emerged challenging and elusive as the chameleons that came down the star-apple tree clinging to the red barren rock; the snare and the snarl etched around their lips in defiance of the grit and poverty around them. Dust on his lips, in his throat, and, in his eyes, the fading alexia of the unschooled, of the untutored.

But the terrible pang was inside him. It had seized him as it had done these past twelve years, growing within him, gnawing his insides like a leech that came out of his hands as he fashioned and he carved and he etched in the glyphs and in the furrows of metal and leather, crafting the delicate beads nimbly in his hands, the silken gossamer webs spangled in fulgent iridescence of sparkle and wild fire. Wild too in his eyes, the pang had erupted in a fierceness no one understood. And they thought him a madman, a maniac stooped forever over the head of his dragon in its contemptible magnificence of horned-plated scales each lapping over in repeated clusters of copper and brass, bound and stitched together by his skill and the patience of long, flambeau-lighted nights and the terrible desire within him to bring home the prestigious crown of the King of Carnival.

So he stood now in his glory. Tall. Glittering.

The thick arms. The massive thighs. And his shoulders, Atlas-like, bearing the load over his head and around him like his ancestors in the dim-

SHORT STORY

lit forests of distant lands, or, in reminiscing, like the more recent folks under mahogany and cacao in the quiet backwoods of our own land where they toiled in the groves between panniers, always toting like bachacs [ants] as if destined to all eternity in this task, except that now the load on his shoulders gave him a proud, urgent feeling of having created and conquered, bringing out to the world the skill and genius of his people made manifest by this huge prehistoric demon out of legend and the mythical past in his portrayal that would not only mesmerize and astound, but would also destroy the fallacy in the minds of others that he and his kind had not their places in the pews and podia of society.

So in the instrument of this terrible phantasm coming out of its lair, rising from the scum and trodden marshland, he laboured with love, ignoring sleep and pain and forgetting hunger that was never gratified by the thin pottage of ochro and dumplings he kept near his tin of paste.

And now he sensed the triumphant feeling coming up from the toes, from the claws, ascending along his spine to his cranium as he

It came on stage, part man, part robot, its co-ordinating movements mechanized, the eyes sparked, it spoke, it buzzed, sang, emitting clouds of tinted smoke, a perfumed spray. edged centre stage, lifting the great head of the beast sequined and fashioned to the uncanny similitude of the Mesozoic monster that crawled and slithered with its flailing tail, spitting out fire, fuming over the audience until they roared “Dat is mas”. And mas’ it was. Captivating and panoplied as he stood in triumph on stage before the thousands now on the edge of their seats.

He raised his elbows, pulled at the network of wires strapped to his fingers inside the costume, manipulating the great animal, turning its head, the front paws and the thrashing tail. The jaws opened blood red, eyes bulging in a rage to the tune and to the promise he had made as written on the programmes, that he was going to make

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SHORT STORY

the dragon dance, dance for them. So the pans mellowed and a hush prevailed, the master of ceremonies dragged the microphone cord out of the way and Santo, as he had done so many times before practising in his own back- yard, got on the hind legs of the reptile and shifted its weight from side to side, the sinuous body swaying with the music. The crowd laughed and yelled.

“Take dem, Santo,” someone shouted from the side of the stage.

“He come good, man. Look at that thing, man must be spend he whole life behind it.”

“You think he goh make.”

A squeaky voice came from the back. “You tink it easy! Man does band dey jaw and belly, starve the whole year just for tonight.”

“Look, dat is blood and sweat and long tears.”

“Dat’s why he wife leave him.”

“Just for one night, eh boy?”

“Dat’s it boy – only showing how we people could bare the grind.”

“We have belly – guts. Recession or not.”

“Guts? Talent!”

You sure right!”

“How ah talk?”

“Brave, man, brave.”

And Santo, peeping through the holes of his scaly costume, heard the approval of the audience, saw the nodding heads of the white-faced judges and, relishing the ovations, bowed and retreated, making room for the others to come on stage.

They too, danced in their glory, chipping away before the judges, covered with feathers and silk, bobbing and weaving in the gorgeous display of tinsel and paint and foil and lamé. For them the applause was loud, also, as each one paraded: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, the copper toned Montezuma, Chief Great Hunting Bear, Waxatalabah burly as a bison under the brilliant canopy of mirrors, beads and white bones, his headpiece so large it tore down the overhead wires.

But it was the last masquerader that caused him to turn his head as he rested backstage. It was the white man again – last year’s winner. Santo recognized the walk, the delayed gait, the stooped shoulders, and immediately his forehead became cold beaded.

Now the white man moved on stage alone. But his costume was neither large or billowing. It lacked bulk, weight, without the pastiche of laboured details, taking up a smaller space. But its magnificence was in its modern, technological revelations. It came on stage, part man, part robot, its co-ordinating movements mechanized, the eyes sparked, it spoke, it buzzed, sang, emitting clouds of tinted smoke, a perfumed spray. Then from 40

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

under it, wheels came out as they rolled across the stage, coloured lights appeared in clusters, brightening the whole stand in a strong incandescence, whirling around to the musical sounds coming out now from its mid-section. And the crowd was stunned, taken aghast by the scientific display. Hysteria. It stood up before the antics of this masquerader, this new invention, his novel interpretation of mas.

So the second round of parade came one hour later, when the judges had exchanged their score sheets with one another between drinks and the interval allowed fidgety movements between the seats of the audience enthralled by the last moving spectacle it had just witnessed.

And then the final moment arrived. All were to parade once more. Attila the Hun appeared hoary, moustachioed, powerful in his gilded boarskin cape, pelted pouches dangling at his side and the bronze epaulettes hugging his shoulders. King ABUBAKARI II the Black Muslim looked ferocious, indigo-blue under the spotlight in leather trappings, filigreed coat, his broad silver shield embossed like his breast plate over which his yardbroom beard hung, unkempt, frazzled, Then his turn came. Once. Twice. His name was called – “Santo Lovelace and his dancing dragon.”

But he just stood there silent and alone, among the stage hands, unmoving, leaning against his dragon, idle and grotesque, the heaving expanse of his chest now subsided, and beaded brow frowned to quietude. And in his eyes, the cold stares of the vanquished fanatic or genius, lost in some soporific trance in which sacrifice, devotion and long seasons of rehearsals were now laid waste.

He still heard his name being called through the microphone when he left, as he quietly pushed his dragon head low, through the flats on to the grass outside, and he never forgot the fearful vision of the white-faced judges, pencils on their lips, and the white masquerader prancing and jiving in his robot contraption under confetti and streamers, with his ostentatious performance and the popping noises, and the battery of lights that stuttered, exploding around him.

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King of the Carnival and Other Stories

by Willi Chen Paperback, £7.99 / US $12.00

And in his eyes, the cold stares of the vanquished fanatic or genius, lost in some soporific trance in which sacrifice, devotion and long seasons of rehearsals were now laid waste.

Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR PASTOR DANIELS EKARTE AND THE AFRICAN CHURCHES MISSION: Liverpool 1931-1964 Marika Sherwood A young man arrived in Liverpool from Nigeria around 1915 expecting to find the streets paved with gold.

Instead, the area was depressed, poor, racist and, to his mind, ungodly. In 1931, he founded the African Churches Mission, in which he not only conducted services but also fed and clothed the poor of the community, and housed seamen and others denied accommodation due to the colour of their skin. He also provided a home for the unwanted children of local white women left behind by their fathers – African American servicemen who returned home when World War II ended.

As a radical supporter of anti-racist movements in the African Diaspora, he was regarded as troublesome, and therefore received no state or voluntary support, not even from the Anti-Slavery Society. Nevertheless, he and his mission soldiered on for over thirty years.

This is an account of the remarkable life and work of a man referred to as “the African Saint”. It is an inspiring story of kindness, activism and resilience.

Paperback, £11.99 / US $18.00 • eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99 UK customers SAVE £3.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

BEACONS OF LIBERATION Shango Baku A collection of fifteen brief biographies of iconic Black leaders and activists who helped to advance the cause of liberty. These individuals, both historic and contemporary, have made significant contributions to the fight for equality and freedom, and their stories continue to resonate in the 21st century. The book serves as a general introduction and includes Mary Prince, Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Ira Aldridge, Nanny of the Maroons, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Walter Rodney and Bob Marley.

The stories are a testament to the power of human resilience and the importance of fighting for justice and equality. Their legacies continue to inspire people around the world and their stories are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of the Black experience.

Paperback, £6.99 / US $11.00 • eBook, £4.54 / US $5.50 UK customers SAVE £1.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

IRA ALDRIDGE: Celebrated 19th Century Actor Martin Hoyles Ira Aldridge was one of the most celebrated actors of the 19th century and performed in all the major towns in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He won international fame when he toured Europe, earning a dozen honours and awards, including a knighthood in Germany. He was most famous for his portrayal of Othello in a career spanning more than forty years.

AN EVENTFUL LIFE Maurice Odle Dr Maurice Odle’s professional life as an academic and senior national, regional and international civil servant intersected with the clash of two powerful economic forces, namely the economic nationalism of the underdeveloped world and the profit maximising operations of foreign transnational corporations.

While developing countries, in recent decades, have significantly increased their capacity for dealing with foreign investment issues and the nexus areas of international trade, finance and transfer of technology, the West has frustrated them in their efforts to bring about fundamental change in international economic relations and in the neo-liberal rules of the game.

For example, the United Nations initiative(s) of the developing countries with respect to a New International Economic Order (relating mainly to trade) fell apart by the end of the 1970s; intensive negotiations on a Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations were abandoned in the early 1990s; and negotiations with respect to ‘Financing for Development’ (that were supposed to usher in a new financial order) continue to be agonisingly slow; policy making remains essentially the preserve of the Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank.

Developing countries have been attempting to diversify their sources of foreign capital, but the USA is pressuring them to not accept investment from China which, paradoxically, is at the same time under a USA-led sanctions embargo designed to prevent that country from acquiring investment (or tradeable goods) with advanced semi-conductor technology. The struggle for a more equitable economic order continues.

In this candid autobiography, Maurice Odle charts his journey from humble beginnings in what was then British Guiana to London, New York, Geneva and back to the Caribbean, and the intractable challenges of operating on the world stage in the interests of the disadvantaged. He presents engaging insights into not only the workings of the global economic system, but also political and social life in general in this treasure trove of rich experiences.

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REACHING FOR THE STARS: The Life of Dr Yesu Persaud, Volume Two David Dabydeen and Lynne Macedo Yesu Persaud was a businessman, banker and philanthropist. The son of cane workers, he would eventually rise from his humble origins to become one of Guyana’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Alongside his business career he freely gave of his time and experience to the many organisations he helped found to assist those less fortunate than himself. Amongst his many philanthropic activities was his keen and continuous support of educational activities at the University of Guyana.

Aldridge was also the first Black actor to play white roles, including Shylock, Richard III, King Lear and Macbeth. After three years of amateur dramatics in New York, he left for England. In 1825, he played Othello at the Royalty Theatre in the east end of London. He played the part of the African prince Oroonoko in The Revolt of Surinam, a story which challenged the evils of slavery. Despite being “the world’s most celebrated interpreter of Shakespeare” during his lifetime, Ira Aldridge was largely forgotten in Britain and America after his death in 1867. He was a brilliant actor, but also a valiant campaigner against slavery.

In Volume One of his memoirs, Persaud wrote movingly about his family and their struggles both during and after the abolition of the indentureship system that had first brought them to what was then British Guiana. In Volume Two, he continues the story of his life from the mid-1970s, and provides a fascinating view of his business and professional life, as well as his philanthropy. Entwined with this story is a more personal account which gives a deeper insight into Dr Persaud’s private life amongst family and friends. Even in the face of adversity, his candour and strong sense of humour always shine through. He also gives an enthralling account of the political landscape of Guyana over the past seven decades and weaves his own narrative alongside that of a broader, nationwide perspective with a personal insight into many of the country’s key political events.

Paperback, £8.99 / US $14.00

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Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR THE ALTRUIST: The Untold Story of Dookhee Gungah in Twentieth Century Mauritius

KAMLA: Trinidad and Tobago’s First Woman Prime Minister

Swetam Gungah

This book chronicles the first year as Prime Minister of the remarkable Kamla PersadBissessar. It also demonstrates the path taken by one of a growing number of women who are now leaders of their nation.

Stories about Indian indenture often resonate with suffering and shame. The system that was introduced in the 1830s to replace slavery across the British Empire came with its share of hardship. Yet, there is the story of one man who sheds a different light on this episode of British and Mauritian history.

Mauritius in the early twentieth century was an emerging nation, with different peoples looking to forge a sense of identity and belonging. It was a country built by immigrants who faced countless challenges.

And amid all of this, one individual stood out from the rest.

The story of Dookhee Gungah is about a man’s rise from poverty and misfortune to become a symbol of hope and benevolence for the community. His success was more than personal for the people whose lives he touched also benefitted.

As the son of an Indian indentured labourer, his achievements are truly unique across the entire indentureship diaspora, and his influence reached far beyond the shores of Mauritius. He made significant and unparalleled contributions to education, society, culture, and much more. His philanthropy will remain an everlasting inspiration, and his rich legacy will permeate far in the future.

How did someone from a deprived background achieve such greatness without sacrificing his kindness and generosity? Dookhee Gungah’s extraordinary story is about altruism in its purest form.

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REMEMBER ME: Achievements of Mixed Race People, Past and Present Asher & Martin Hoyles A collection of biographies featuring historical and contemporary figures including Bob Marley, Mary Seacole, Frederick Douglass, Arthur Wharton, Ellen Craft, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Cleo Laine, Shirley Bassey, Cathy Tyson and Oona King. A detailed introduction deals with key issues relating to this important subject, such as, should we still be using the term ‘race’? Why does society see mixed-race people as Black? What is the ‘one-drop’ rule? And why is cultural heritage so important?

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CUGOANO AGAINST SLAVERY Martin Hoyles Of the three leading Black figures in eighteenthcentury England (Sancho, Equiano and Cugoano), Ottobah Cugoano is the least well known, yet he was the most radical, campaigning not just against the slave trade but for a total abolition of slavery.

In 1770, at the age of thirteen, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery and sent to work on plantations in Grenada and other parts of the West Indies. In 1772, he was brought to England where he gained his freedom. By the mid-1780s he was employed as a servant by the court painters Richard and Maria Cosway. It was while here that Cugoano published his book Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.

By then he had already begun his campaign of letters against the slave trade by writing to the Prince of Wales, King George III and William Pitt among others.

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Born into humble beginnings in a farming district, the young Kamla grew up with few material possessions, but it was her mother who would give her the gift of courage and the passion to dream. These attributes would first take her to London, as a teenager, to study and become a social worker.

But, as Kamla matured, so too would her dreams. She became a university lecturer and then a lawyer, but her connection with ordinary people would ultimately inspire her to become a ‘representative of the people’ in her native country.

This book is a largely pictorial reflection of Kamla’s activities during the first year of her premiership and provides an insight into her thoughts and dreams for the future of Trinidad and Tobago.

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR COLIN BRIAN FURLONGE: In the Public Service of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Colin Brian Furlonge Dr Colin Furlonge served 34 years in the Public Service of Trinidad and Tobago, culminating with eight years as Medical Chief of Staff and three years as the nation’s Chief Medical Officer. In this expansive autobiography, he also provides a detailed expose as the “victim of a history of prejudicial treatment”. This treatment was directed by the Government of the day and was guided by the Public Service Commission (PSC).

In 2004, he was compelled to resort to the High Court of Justice, whose Judgement stated that, “… compliance with PSC Regulations is necessary if there is to be confidence in the Public Service; failure to do so results in the warranted suspicion of arbitrariness, discrimination, bias, partiality and even political interference, especially when division along ethnic and political lines are often determinative of the perception of reality…”. It concluded that, “… the Applicant felt legitimately aggrieved.”

“The book depicts a son of the soil in his struggles, literally from boyhood, to achieve the ultimate position in the Health Service in Trinidad & Tobago.” Lal Sawh, reviewer for the British Medical Journal “A remarkable story of a dedicated public servant who has served his country and the medical profession well.” Professor Steven Myint, former Dean of Medicine & Health at the University of Surrey, UK “Bouts of laughter, intrigue and contemplation, punctuated by bouts of anger and sadness; an information boiling pot highlighting a fearless approach to life and public service.” Dr Curtis Rambaran, former Consultant Physician, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, London

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Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR JOE SOLOMON AND THE SPIRIT OF PORT MOURANT: The Making of the Guyana and West Indies Cricketer and its Context, 1930s-1960s Clem Seecharan with Ian McDonald This tribute to Joe Solomon (1930-), now the oldest West Indies Test cricketer, celebrates the career “and its context” of this reliable lower middle order batsman on his 92nd birthday. Solomon is from Port Mourant, an exceptional sugar plantation on the Corentyne Coast in Guyana (formerly British Guiana), birthplace of the Guyanese leader Cheddi Jagan (1918-97), as well as several other Test cricketers: John Trim, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Ivan Madray and Alvin Kallicharran.

Solomon played in 14 of the 15 Tests led by the first black captain of the West Indies, Sir Frank Worrell (1924-67), between 1960 and 1963. Worrell’s teams rekindled passion widely for a game that had become stodgy in the late 1950s.

Though less flamboyant, Joe was the even-tempered stabiliser in a team of gifted, if mercurial, stroke-makers. In December 1960, Solomon executed two run outs, direct hits when Australia was on the verge of victory, that were instrumental in effecting the first Tied Test in the history of cricket. The style and sportsmanship of Worrell’s team, in 1960-1, so captivated the Australian imagination that over 300,000 poured into the streets of Melbourne, on 17 February 1961, to say farewell to the West Indians.

Joe Solomon will be remembered for that Tied Test. But, as Ian McDonald reminds us, “Over and over again, Joe walked to the wicket with everyone in the nation depending on him to save the day.” This book examines the private and wider social forces that made Joe the epitome of the qualities Worrell inculcated in his players: application, control of the emotions, fidelity to the traditions of the noble game, team spirit and an appreciation that West Indians expected their cricketers to be exemplary ambassadors, within and beyond the boundary.

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1973 AND ME: The England v West Indies Test Series and a Memorable Childhood Year Colin Babb From 1968 to 1973, the West Indies did not win a Test series and lost 2-0 on their last England tour in 1969. By 1973, and despite this lack of success, West Indies cricket still played a central role as a medium of Caribbean selfexpression in Britain. In the summer of 1973, could the West Indies deliver the performances and results to inspire the Caribbean diaspora in Britain? 1973 and Me reveals why this was an iconic year for many. This was also the year that Colin ‘discovered’ cricket on television, which provided intense competition to his devotion to football.

The book reflects on patterns of Colin’s family and Caribbean migration to Britain, wider perspectives on history, identity, music and politics, shared family experiences of television in the 1970s, a collection of memorable events, and interplay with the 1973 West Indies tour. Contributors include: Dennis Amiss, Clyde Best, Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird, Keith Fletcher, Maurice Foster, Lance Gibbs, Colin Grant, Frank Hayes, Ron Headley, Bernard Julien, Alvin Kallicharran, Simon Lister, Joe Moran, Deryck Murray and Clem Seecharan.

ANDREW WATSON: The World’s First Black Football Superstar Tony Talburt Today, seeing Black footballers playing the game at the very highest level is considered very normal. This was not the case 140 years ago, and this is what makes the story of Andrew Watson so remarkable.

It seems hard to imagine that a Guyanese-born Black man could head the Scottish national football team in 1881 in a game against England. Not only was he captain, but he also led them to a 6-1 victory in London – an achievement that still ranks as England’s heaviest ever defeat on home soil. If this were all that Watson had been able to accomplish, most people would agree that he should be commended for being the world’s first Black person to captain a national football team. But there was so much more. He was the world’s first Black football administrator, as well as the first Black player to win three national cup winners’ trophies. During the 1870s and 1880s, when Watson played, he was regarded as one of the finest players in Britain.

The word ‘pioneer’ is often used to describe certain players, but this would certainly be a most fitting expression to encapsulate the remarkable achievements of Andrew Watson. This book reflects upon the legend, legacy and pioneering endeavours of a truly great Black British football superstar.

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BLACK PEARLS: The A-Z of Black Footballers in the English Game Al Hamilton with Rodney Hinds This now rare book provides a snapshot of late 1990s football and documents the careers and achievements of nearly 300 Black footballers playing in the English game up to 1998.

The cosmopolitan nature of the modern global village is no more effectively illustrated than in the world’s football stadiums. And there is, perhaps, no better example of a true meritocracy than on the turf of football’s ‘level playing fields’. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the English football leagues.

And the Black footballer is now an integral element of the English game.

Illustrated throughout, this book also features the game’s early pioneers, Africa’s contribution to world football and Jamaica’s trailblazing ‘Reggae Boyz’.

Paperback, £12.99 / US $20.00 This hard to find book is available to UK customers from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

UNBEATEN INNINGS Steve Stephenson This fascinating autobiography of Steve Stephenson is a vivid insight into his love of sport, family life and a career in local government, both as a social worker and as an equality and human rights campaigner. It highlights his dedication to tackling racism and a lifetime of voluntary work in support of Black cricketers and footballers.

“Colin Babb has a rare and beautiful talent for immersing the reader into history, allowing them to feel and share the journey of our pasts.” Karen Hunte, Chair, Caribbean Politics, British Political Studies Association

He grew up in Jamaica and moved to the UK when he was eighteen. He has since dedicated his life to helping others, particularly through his work within the Black community. As a passionate player and fan of cricket, he has been associated with the West Indies teams during their visits to the UK since the 1980s. His passion for sport extends to football, and he was one of the first to celebrate the pioneers of Black British football. He continues to actively campaign against racism in all walks of life.

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“... a vital account of the spirit, dynamism and cultural transformation of cricket brought about by West Indian cricketers. It is told with verve and brio ...” Colin Grant, historian, author and broadcaster

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR SHOULDERING ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA: The Life of V.C. Bird

SHRIDATH RAMPHAL: The Commonwealth and the World

Paget Henry

This anthology of essays provides glimpses of a remarkable career and has been written by those who worked with Shridath Ramphal or have researched his many contributions to the Caribbean, the Commonwealth and the global community, and to internationalism.

As its charismatic labour leader, its first Chief Minister, its first Premier and first Prime Minister, V.C. Bird dominated the political life of Antigua and Barbuda for the 55 years between 1939 and 1994.

This is the first full-length biography of the great Antiguan and Barbudan political leader. It begins with a close look at the path of his development as a man and as a politician. It then examines the major achievements and failures of Bird’s rule, the contours that they outlined, and the indelible traces they have left on the path of the country’s history. His major achievement was to gain independence for Antigua and Barbuda from Britain.

The book concludes with some reflections on V.C. Bird’s endeavours towards post-colonial transformation not only in Antigua and Barbuda but also for the wider Caribbean.

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SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: The Life and Times of an African Caribbean British Man

Richard Bourne (Ed.)

Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal grew up in Guyana in the colonial era to become the leading spokesman of the free, independent, developing world in the last quarter of the 20th century.

For an unequalled stint of 15 years (from 1975 to 1990), he was SecretaryGeneral of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Among his many achievements, he includes being a key player in bringing an end to Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence and institutional racism in Southern Rhodesia. He spent much of his last five years as SecretaryGeneral in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. He had the satisfaction of playing a part in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in February 1990, and Namibia’s independence the following month.

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GLOBAL CITIZEN: Grass Roots Activism and High Diplomacy

Max Farrar

Carl Wright

This biography of Arthur France MBE is the story of someone that ‘the establishment’ would prefer to keep hidden from British history. But Arthur France has made history.

Carl Wright has devoted his entire working life to global action through grass roots activism and international diplomacy. He engaged with world leaders and political icons from across the globe, including Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Indira Gandhi, Julius Nyerere, Shridath Ramphal, Fidel Castro, Aung San Suu Kyi, Ban Ki-Moon, Cyril Ramaphosa and Bob Hawke. In these and other encounters, he reflects his experiences.

Born and raised on the Caribbean island of Nevis, he arrived in Leeds in the north of England in 1957.

From the moment he arrived, he began to organise members of the local Caribbean community into a united force for social progress. But Arthur is best known as the founder of the first Black-led Caribbean Carnival in Europe. This was in Leeds in 1967, but his idea for carnival was not merely sequins and feathers – for him, Carnival was a symbol of Emancipation and a vehicle for changing people’s lives.

If Leeds is now a city that embraces diversity, it is in no small part due to Arthur France and his brothers and sisters in struggle. In telling Arthur’s story, Max Farrar also reflects upon the struggle for justice and equality led by so many members of Britain’s Black and Brown communities. It provides the context of violent racism, including the white riots in London’s Notting Hill, the relentless provocation towards their own self-defence, and the growth of the Black Power movement. This remarkable man’s life story is a poignant narrative about ‘race’ in post-war Britain.

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SIR DENNIS BYRON: Law Legend Francis Alexis Often described as the greatest Caribbean jurist of our era, Sir Dennis Byron had a long and distinguished career serving in institutions in the Caribbean, Africa, Canada and the UK. He was born in 1943 in St Kitts, won the highly coveted Leeward Islands Scholarship in 1960 and went on to read law at Cambridge University in 1962.

His many years of service reflect a catalogue of landmark legal decisions, outcomes and honours. Among these, he presided over the historic murder trial on the killing of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop; he was President of the UN ICT for Rwanda; regularly addressed the UN Security Council; and received a Knighthood in 2000.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Making official visits to some 100 countries, he has seen at first-hand what is required to implement good governance. These missions included most of the 54 nations of the Commonwealth and provide rare insights into the effects of political and social advocacy. Perhaps most significant is his long-standing involvement with the anti-apartheid struggle.

This book delivers a critical message: the need for global understanding and co-operation. With the rise of political populists, authoritarian strongmen and violent extremists, he implores us to strengthen fragile international relations and mitigate the threat of conflict which is currently real and ever-present.

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GLIMPSES OF A GLOBAL LIFE Shridath Ramphal This memoir features a cast of the world’s leading characters and the central role Shridath Ramphal played alongside them. He tells the story of the Commonwealth’s role in ending the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Southern Rhodesia by a minority white regime and bringing Zimbabwe to independence; of aiding the struggle against apartheid and securing its end, and the release of Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s freedom; of Margaret Thatcher’s stubbornness against sanctions and the heroic stand against her by other Commonwealth leaders – from Africa, India and, particularly, in terms of effectiveness, Canada and Australia.

In these ‘glimpses’, the shadows of characters such as Uganda’s Idi Amin are recalled, as are the enlightened spirits of others like Germany’s Willy Brandt and Nelson Mandela, all of whom Ramphal encountered in his global life.

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Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR A.N.R. ROBINSON: In the Midst of It A.N.R. Robinson The Autobiography of Former President and Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago From humble origins, Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson rose to become a national, regional and international leader. He would become a parliamentarian, Minister of Finance, and Prime Minister and President of Trinidad and Tobago.

A.N.R. Robinson has not only been a great leader of his country, but he has demonstrated that capacity on the world stage. In this regard, he has altered the course of history by his extraordinary leadership in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Without his efforts, it is doubtful that this major international institution would exist today.

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FATHERING A NATION: Barbados and the Legacy of Errol Walton Barrow Guy Hewitt Foreword by the then Prime Minister of Barbados and an Introduction by Sir Garfield Sobers On 30 November 1966, Barbados was given focus and direction by Errol Barrow, the first Prime Minister and a National Hero. Proclaimed the ‘Father of Independence’, it was said that this close friend of the leaders of his era including Michael Manley and Pierre Trudeau, “found Barbados a collection of villages and transformed them into a proud nation.”

With contributions from national, regional and international leaders and key speeches by Barrow himself, this is a tribute to an extraordinary man who gave Barbadians the ability to hold their heads high and proud.

This is a must read for citizens of the modern Caribbean and those interested in leadership and the history, economics, politics and international relations of small states.

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THE LIVES AND WORK OF TWO INDO-TRINIDADIANS: Influences of Indentureship, Evangelisation and Education

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TRIALS OF A TRIAL LAWYER

H. Joy Norman

Derick F. Sylvester

From 1845 to 1917, indentured labourers from India arrived in the former British colony to address the labour shortages following the abolition of slavery in 1838. The colonial rulers were unconcerned with the welfare of, first, the enslaved Africans and, later, the indentured Indian labourers. It was, therefore, fortuitous that the Canadian Presbyterian missionaries intervened to improve the lives of, in particular, the subjugated East Indian population.

From as early as he could remember, Derick Sylvester had set his sights on becoming a lawyer and to fight injustice. Despite the most humble beginnings, his passion, drive and sheer grit propelled him to achieving this goal.

This book examines the lives of two descendants of Indian indentured immigrants. Samuel Ramsaran and Leslie Sankarsingh were raised in the Christian tradition, but each made different life choices in their careers.

Throughout this autobiography, Sylvester presents unique insights into the trial process and he reflects upon the many cases in which he has been involved. One such case being his involvement in the resentencing of those convicted of murder in the Maurice Bishop Murder Trial.

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HANSIB PUBLICATIONS Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

He was born and raised in Grenada and read law at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, and also at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad.

In addition to his work as an Attorney-at-Law, Derick Sylvester is an active and effective participant in public service in Grenada. He served as Chairman of the Allied Health Professional Council, and the Grenada Football Association Disciplinary Appeals Committee; he was Director of the Maurice Bishop International Airport Board, and the National Housing Authority Board; and he served as Chairman of the Public Service Commission of Grenada.

This book traces Derick Sylvester’s life to date and explores the many experiences that have influenced his progression into the lawyer we see today. Written in his own words, this autobiography is emotive, engaging and reflects his empathy for the human condition, his passion for the law and his never-ending quest for justice.

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FROM WHERE I STAND Roy Sawh Renowned civil rights activist and public speaker, Roy Sawh looks back over his three decades in Britain since his arrival in the 1950s.

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

This part biography, part social commentary, contains all the elements of the life story of any West Indian in Britain. West Indians came with dreams and expectations of being treated as full citizens of their ‘Motherland’ – a country for which they had fought in the Second World War. But they were quickly and starkly disillusioned by racist rejection and cruelty.

TEL/TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956

Paperback, £5.95 / US $9.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR CASE DISMISSED! Gloria Cameron, MBE Gloria Cameron came to Britain from Jamaica as a young woman and endured the discrimination she met on arrival and managed to raise six children in a positive way, despite her own setbacks.

She was educated in her place of birth and also in the UK and moved into community work. She worked diligently and devoted all her efforts to her chosen vocation. However, when her commitment and dedication were seen as ‘taking’, she faced unfounded accusations of wrong-doing. But the case against her collapsed and was dismissed within two days! But the damage was done.

For a woman who had worked with integrity and dedication, who was appointed a Justice of the Peace, was awarded and MBE, had met with Princess Diana, and had made television appearances, these were dark days.

Gloria’s story is an account of how some Jamaicans came to Britain, made new lives for themselves, became valued members of society, but who were, ultimately, brought down by unknown forces. “… a non-patronising, non-sentimental and certainly a non-pathological account of her experience as a Caribbean migrant mother living, surviving and bringing up six children in London.” Dame Jocelyn Barrow OBE

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I NEVER SAID GOODBYE Reynold Burrowes This is the story of one man’s return to Guyana, the land of his youth. His return was thirty-five years in the making, back to the country he never expected to leave; a place he thought would always be home.

Reynold Burrowes travelled to Guyana with several former classmates who, like him, were Guyanese expats hoping to reconnect with family members and old friends. The visit exceeded all expectations and was both eye-opening and overwhelming. They witnessed with great pride how the former British colony had made much progress. There was a dynamic tempo to daily life and an air of industriousness and optimism. But, despite their best efforts to reengage, they felt increasingly like outsiders, desperately trying to envision their former selves in this now unfamiliar land. This memoir tells a familiar tale of those who dream of returning ‘home’ some day, but whose nostalgic voyage of discovery isn’t always what they hoped it would be.

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POTARO DREAMS: My Youth in Guyana Jan Carew This is the first volume of Jan Carew’s memoirs. In naming it ‘Potaro Dreams’, he draws a parallel between Guyana’s Potaro River – which is an essential river in what the Amerindians called “the land of many rivers” – and the shaping of his young life.

Born in 1920, Carew’s engaging memoir takes the reader from his near-death experience with malaria, into his village life in Agricola and Mocha, a brief turn in New York when his youngest sister was kidnapped, and his family’s return to British Guiana and New Amsterdam. After years of recurring bouts with malaria and being forced to spend much of his time in bed, he overcomes these early years by a thirst for reading and an alert mind that blooms with the encouragement of remarkable teachers at Berbice High School.

BELONGING: Fate and Changing Realities Herman Ouseley As a twelve-year-old born into an impoverished single parent household in what was then British Guiana, Herman Ouseley travelled unaccompanied across the world to Britain to be re-united with his mother in Peckham, south London. Low in self-confidence and self-esteem, he regarded himself as a “nobody” in this new world as he struggled to come to terms with the harsh realities of brutal abuse, discrimination, exclusion and the necessity of survival.

Ouseley’s memoir vividly describes how he learnt to cope with all challenges, finding his own unique ways of winning people over and encouraging them to mix with others who are different from themselves. Along the way, he learnt how to develop methods to convince and persuade powerful people to use their influence and decision making to help eliminate the adverse effects of institutional discrimination, reduce prejudice and bigotry, and to build social cohesion.

Over a period of nearly sixty years dedicated to public service, he became a “somebody” at times, as he challenged the ‘good and the great’ to use their resources and power in pursuit of the goals of equality and cohesion. But, in spite of the opportunities to access such places of power, he never felt a full sense of belonging and his focus has always been to hold on to the different realities of his own experiences.

As he now reverts back to obscurity, he reflects on contemporary Britain, knowing that there is still a struggle to achieve responsible and accountable leadership on matters of equality, without which many people like himself will continue longing to feel that they also belong.

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AN ACCIDENTAL LIFE Harold Drayton This is a portrait of a man who played a significant role in the history of education and health in the Caribbean. Harold Drayton’s passionate and meticulous memoir offers, first, a precious account of colonial British Guiana.

Chance took him first as a teacher at the Grenada Boys Secondary School, then on a scholarship to the new University College in Jamaica. He remembers Kingston in the early 1950s, where his involvement in radical politics in Jamaica, led to his expulsion from university.

In Britain, he completed a doctoral thesis on cancer viruses which, in 1961, meant that he was one of only five Guianese then with a PhD. Banned from re-entry to Jamaica, the search for work took him to Nkrumah’s Ghana in 1961. But, by 1962, he was on his way home, invited by Cheddi Jagan, whose People’s Progressive Party he had joined in 1950, to organise a national university. The University of Guyana is essentially the fruit of his vision, although by 1964, he found himself without Jagan’s support after the election of Forbes Burnham and facing a hostile government.

By the early 1970s, he was forced to give up both Guyana and his academic career, and moved to Barbados, where he found a new passion in public health policy. Working for the Pan American Health Organisation, and after 1990 for the University of Texas, his mark was felt in the implementation of human resources development programmes, relevant to primary health care strategies, in every country of the region.

This book ends in 1939 when the Second World War draws him, his best friends, and fellow students into joining the British armed forces.

“... Drayton’s memoir spans more than half a century of personal and institutional engagement with almost every territory in the Caribbean ... Whether it was the cut and thrust of university debate, or the more frightening turbulence of Guyana’s political leadership struggles of the 1960s, Drayton features as a critical witness and participant.”

Professor George Lamming

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR THE BLACK COSMETICS KINGS

WALK WITH ME: An Autobiography

Tony Wade, MBE

Collin Leroy Carter

Established in the 1960s, the Black cosmetics company, Dyke & Dryden had a major impact on Britain’s Black community. It provided jobs and opportunities and also helped to promote Black culture and identity.

This intriguing and engaging autobiography is the fulfilment of the author’s lifelong dream to tell his unique story.

Tony Wade and his business partners, Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden, were pioneers in the development of the Black hair care industry in Britain. The company’s success also inspired other Black entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. Today, Dyke & Dryden’s legacy lives on and the company is still acknowledged as a trailblazer, not only in the Black British hair and beauty industry but also in Black British business in general.

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THE UNDIMINISHED LINK: Forty Years and Beyond Victor Waldron This is the story of the author’s journey from village life in British Guiana to London at the end of the 1950s. The sudden culture shock brought many complications: the cold weather, the difficulty obtaining accommodation, and the constant threat of hostility and racial discrimination. It was a time of working among people who resented the arrival of immigrants and having to contend with the ensuing bigotry.

Reflecting upon his experiences and intrigues, it tells of the struggle for survival and the desire to succeed, the shattered dreams and aspirations that were never accomplished, and the challenges of raising a family in an often hostile environment.

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MISS NOBODY Patricia Grant-Morby A candid and heartbreaking memoir that reflects upon a troubled life filled with sorrow, misery and pain – both physical and psychological. The author has faced the many challenges with courage and determination, but not always with successful conclusions.

The daughter of Jamaican parents, she was born in England but raised in Jamaica until her teenage years, after which she returned to England. Her father spent most of these early years back in England, working and sending money home. So, Patricia and her siblings were raised by their mother, and also their grandmother. And it is this relationship with her mother that has affected her to the present day. It was a relationship characterised by abuse; of neglect, ridicule and constant threat. Told in her own words, this is a frank and harrowing narrative of a deeply troubled life.

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Collin Carter arrived in London from Barbados as a young man in 1962 and is renowned for being the founder of the UK’s first Black-owned funeral service.

Since its establishment in 1992, African-Caribbean Funeral Services has attended to the needs of the Black community. Most notably, the company received nationwide attention in 1993 when it provided the funeral services for Joy Gardner, a Jamaican mature student who died after being detained during a police immigration raid on her home in London. Collin was pictured across the nation’s TV channels and newspapers heading the funeral procession.

Collin is an activist and committed Pan-Africanist and his autobiography is often a heart-rending account of life in Britain.

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I WAS A SOLDIER: Survival Against the Odds Necola Hall Jamaican-born Necola Hall served in the British Army for nearly ten years and is a veteran of the Second Gulf War. Her application to join the Army was turned down twice, but her dogged tenacity led to her acceptance into the Adjutant General Corps. The recollections of her experiences in the military and of her tour of duty in war-torn Iraq are inspiring.

Necola emigrated to the UK in 2002 aged twenty-five in search of better life opportunities and prospects. She tells of the sacrifice of leaving her husband behind; the emotions of separation, and her joy of being reunited with him in the UK. She reflects on the challenges she faced growing up in Jamaica where her family’s impoverished circumstances meant school attendance was inconsistent; a fact that would negatively affect her in adulthood.

Despite her setbacks, she always possessed an unflinching determination to succeed in all her endeavours. But her early life experiences and the unrelenting challenges of military service would eventually take their toll.

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FROM TOP MOUNTAIN: An Autobiography Bishop Dr Joe Aldred Joe Aldred was born in the rural district of Top Mountain located in the hills of St Catherine, Jamaica.

Most of the inhabitants were poor folk who tilled the land with subsistence crops and reared domestic livestock. For those who wanted to improve their lives, the choice was to either move to the island’s capital, Kingston, or migrate overseas. Most of Joe’s immediate family chose the second option and, at various times throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they emigrated to England and the United States. Joe’s family settled near Birmingham, England, and in 1968, at the age of fifteen, he was reunited with his parents and siblings... and introduced to the chill of a British autumn!

This is the story of one man’s journey from humble beginnings in Jamaica, through the challenges of migration and settlement in a racialised environment, to the status of a respected – sometimes controversial – community and religious leader, broadcaster, ecumenist, speaker and writer.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

47

Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR BEFORE WINDRUSH: West Indians in Britain

VAL’S BRIDGE

Asher & Martin Hoyles

This is the story of a Black woman who followed her dreams from the age of six years old. She was aware very early on that it would take more than determination and ambition to pursue her goals, especially when the going got tough. This is her fascinating journal of the major episodes in her journey of life, including being one of the few Black women to enlist in the RAF.

West Indians have been coming to Britain for over 300 years, so the arrival of around 500 Caribbean passengers on the Empire Windrush in 1948 was not new. This book records twenty-eight early West Indian immigrants, such as Norman Manley, Learie Constantine, Una Marson and C.L.R. James, but also less well-known figures like the model Fanny Eaton, nurse Annie Brewster, footballer Andrew Watson and airman Billy Strachan. Their stories are interspersed with Asher’s passionate poems.

“People of West Indian descent are often reduced to one single word: Windrush. This crushes their individuality and is historically inaccurate.

Asher and Martin Hoyles truthfully and poetically tell the stories of those who came to Britain much earlier. Embedding the Windrush Scandal in a much deeper history of debt that we owe to those who came to Britain, the authors don’t weaken the case for justice for Windrush citizens, they fortify it.” David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, north London “A useful reminder that the arrival of Empire Windrush into Tilbury Docks in June 1948 was not the start of migration from the Caribbean to Britain.”

Amelia Gentleman, author of The Windrush Betrayal, 2019

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NAOROJI, THE FIRST ASIAN MP: A Biography of Dadabhai Naoroji – India’s Patriot and Britain’s MP

Valerie Wood

“Fascinating, inspiring … Val has put into context several aspects of her journey that are typical of people who are a part of the Black Diaspora. A wonderful read.” Whit Stennett, Councillor and former Mayor of Trafford “... an in-depth and fascinating insight into a world few people see. It is all the more interesting written from the perspective of a young Black woman at a time when few Black people were in the RAF.” Deanne Heron, author of Pardner Money Stories

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ONE PEOPLE MAYOR: A Journey Sebert Graham in conversation with Ian Mulder

Omar Ralph

Sebert Graham’s laughter pervades this tale of a Jamaican immigrant who sailed to Britain in 1960.

Born into a large and affectionate family in rural Jamaica, Sebert charmed his teachers, relatives, bully-boy peers and Army NCOs while he went his own rebellious and pioneering way.

Known as the “Grand Old Man of India”, Dadabhai Naoroji was Britain’s first Asian member of Parliament. This book charts his life from humble beginnings in Bombay, to the laying of the foundations of modern India. Even though he was a mentor to men such as Gandhi, his story is relatively unknown. This book serves to re-live his life story so that the work he undertook both in India and in Britain can once again be appreciated.

Moving with his family to a market town nestling in Buckinghamshire’s Chiltern Hills, he involved himself in youth work and community relations. Frustrated with local government red tape, he decided to stand as a town councillor, and a few years later was elected Mayor. He remains awed and humbled at the opportunity he was given to work for the whole community. His life work illustrates how much effort, often voluntary, has been invested into reinventing Britain as a multicultural land at peace with itself.

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THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT: The Story of Robert Wedderburn

GOODBYE, MANGO SERGEANT: Memoir of a Jamaica Trench Town Boy

Martin Hoyles

Keith Walker

Robert Wedderburn was one of the key campaigners against slavery at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was born in 1762 in Jamaica of a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother. At the age of sixteen he went to sea and ended up in England, where he became a tailor and eventually joined a radical political group called the Spenceans. He became famous for the revolutionary rhetoric with which he entertained and educated the crowds, and campaigned for equality in England, for the land to be restored to the people, and freedom for the slaves in the West Indies.

Keith Walker spent his early years in Kingston, Jamaica, where life was tough in the hot and dusty ghettos of Trench Town. He later moved to the countryside parish of Portland where his love for the plentiful and delicious mango earned him the nickname, ‘Mango Sergeant’.

Much of the Black experience in Britain, however, has been hidden from history.

This book will help rectify the situation in an entertaining and informative way.

It tells the story of Wedderburn’s childhood in Jamaica and his experience of slavery, his conversion to Methodism in England and then his commitment to radical politics, which landed him in prison for two years.

Looking back on his life, there were times of great adventure and great danger; friendship and conflict; joy and sadness; and ultimate success. “For me,” he says, “success is being able to walk the streets, ride the buses or visit public places without the fear of being discriminated against because of the colour of my skin or the land of my birth.”

Paperback, £8.99 / US $14.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

In the mid-1960s, Keith left Jamaica to join his mother in England. It was the Swinging Sixties, but life in London for a young Black man was cold, bleak and unfriendly. Every day was a struggle, but Keith faced his challenges through determination and hard work.

Bookshelf • BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR KING SHORT SHIRT – Nobody Go Run Me: The Life and Times of Sir MacLean Emanuel Dorbrene E. O’Marde This important biography of Antigua’s greatest calypsonian is also an in-depth study of the culture and socio-political history of Antigua and Barbuda and the wider Caribbean. The traditional ‘Caribbean song’ and its creators are treated with dignity and deep appreciation. The result is an essential and long overdue addition to the study of calypso.

This is a must-read for calypso lovers, but there is something here for everyone – from the casual reader with interest in Caribbean music and culture to the students and teachers of Caribbean sociology and cultural studies.

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BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: The Story of Black British Scientist Alan Goffe Gaia Goffe and Judith Goffe, MD This is the moving story of a renowned medical scientist who was tragically cut down in his prime.

Alan Goffe was born in Britain in 1920 to a Jamaican father and an English mother, both of whom were physicians. During the 1950s and 1960s, Dr Alan Goffe was one of a group of microbiologists who helped develop and improve vaccines designed to fight two of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases – polio and measles.

However, less than a year after establishing the department of experimental cytology at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, he tragically drowned in a yachting accident off the southern coast of England. He was forty-six.

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RECYCLING A SON OF THE BRITISH RAJ Peter Ramrayka

TRAVELS WITH A HUSBAND Patricia Mohammed and Rex Dixon This book is a journey about friendships and memories, about marriage, companionship and work, an autobiography in prose, verse and drawings, a travelogue, and an adventure in style. It is also autobiographical because it records a creative and intellectual partnership of over two decades.

The authors have journeyed as reluctant tourists rather than as voyeurs and recall their encounters from the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Namibia and the Netherlands.

Patricia Mohammed’s contributions are reflective of history or social attitudes.

Rex Dixon, in turn, interprets, sometimes with humour, events and situations with different artistic nuances and mediums. Illustrated in colour throughout depicting nearly one hundred original works of art Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Patricia Mohammed has lived at various times in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Jamaica, Trinidad and the United States.

She is a scholar and filmmaker and currently Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad.

Rex Dixon was born in London. After teaching in the New University of Ulster in Belfast for several years, he came to Jamaica in 1985 to teach at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts. He has held numerous one person exhibitions in Kingston, Port of Spain and abroad and his paintings are in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Jamaica, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and numerous private collections.

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CLOCKING UP PRAYER MILES: A Spiritual Journey Moreen Duckworth Samuels There is no denying that we live in a chaotic and uncertain world filled with many challenges. The stresses and strains of daily life will test us to the limit and it is often hard to avoid being affected, either emotionally, physically or spiritually. This book aims to shine a light on the steps towards spiritual restoration and to show how, through prayer, the future will appear so much brighter.

Drawing upon the author’s spiritual experiences, it will show how prayer underpinned her faith and gave her strength during challenging circumstances.

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Peter Ramrayka was born in what was then colonial British Guiana (now Guyana). The grandson of indentured Indian labourers, he was brought up to believe that, despite his Indian cultural heritage, Britain was, in fact, the ‘Mother Country’.

TAKING IT TO THE MAX: An Autobiography

With ambitions to become a lawyer, he travelled to England in 1961 with the intention of returning ‘home’ once he had realised his dream. He soon discovered that the so-called mother country was a place where people of colour faced discrimination and victimisation. He joined the Royal Air Force as an option to both work and study. In this environment, he was largely shielded from overt discrimination and soon adopted British cultural values and ways of doing things. This grounding led to exciting and successful careers and endeavours in the National Health Service, the Magistracy, political activism, mission director of a flying teaching eye hospital, British Executive Service Overseas volunteer, and international healthcare management consultant to former British colonies.

This is an autobiography of the life, times and adventures of a community and human rights activist who eventually settled in Birmingham, England, where he has lived and worked for more than sixty years.

Maxie Hayles

Maxie Hayles was born in Jamaica and after migrating to Britain he spent most of his adult life fighting for social justice and equality. He is a devout Christian with a firm belief in humanity, which is underpinned by his deep spiritual values and principles. Maxie has never wavered from the challenges of trying to make the world a better place.

Peter Ramrayka’s autobiography tells the story of his fateful journey and his fortitude to address and overcome the challenges of life in Britain.

Throughout this journey, he faced many adversities which have tested his strength and resolve. But he always persevered through sheer determination, faith and strength of character.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Bookshelf • NON-FICTION GUYANA AT 50: Reflection, Celebration and Inspiration

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Terrific and Tranquil

What is it that makes Guyana such a special place and why has it remained a secret to the rest of the world? The answer may lie in its unique magnificence. Could this be paradise, this land of many waters? The evidence would suggest that it is. But Guyana also has a somewhat curious history, not least, because of the challenges it has faced over the past six hundred years. The First People were overcome by invading Europeans.

Then came the forced and coerced labour of the enslaved Africans, the indentured Chinese, Portuguese and Indians, followed by the challenges faced by successive political movements and ideologies.

3rd Edition

Many miss the true qualities for which this land of many peoples has become renowned: Its hospitality, its freshness and its unspoilt natural beauty. They miss the sensual energy that pervades its atmosphere and fail to notice that, in Guyana, the skies seem bluer, the stars seem brighter and the air is blessed with an ambrosial succulence that stirs the senses and lulls the brain into forgetting day-to-day concerns. Includes more than 250 photographic images.

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DOMINICA: Nature Island of the Caribbean 2nd Edition An insight into one of the Caribbean’s best-kept secrets. Dominica is a virtually unspoilt island whose volcanic peaks rise imposingly from the sea to create a magnificent landscape of forested mountains and river valleys. It is the most mountainous of the Lesser Antilles and has the distinction of being home to the tallest peak in the Eastern Caribbean.

Dominica’s reputation as the ‘Nature Island of the Caribbean’ is well earned because of its unspoilt landscape, natural beauty and abundance of flora and fauna. The island is renowned for its spectacular waterfalls and many rivers.

Consistently rated as a leading dive destination, Dominica’s marine life is considered to be among the best in the world. It is also a leading whale-watching destination in the Caribbean. Includes more than 200 photographic images.

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ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA: A Little Bit of Paradise 7th Edition Blessed with warm tropical sunshine, soothing trade winds, crystal-clear waters and lush vegetation – and with a beach for every day of the year – Antigua and Barbuda really is a little bit of paradise.

And this vision of paradise is made up of palm-fringed coves in Antigua and miles of deserted beaches in Barbuda. This lavishly illustrated book is a spectacular insight into a vibrant Caribbean nation that captures the many aspects of life in this twin-island state.

The twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is one of the most cosmopolitan countries in the world. Since the arrival of Amerindian peoples more than ten thousand years ago, this Caribbean nation has become a melting pot of different races, traditions, customs and religions. European colonisers followed by peoples from Africa, India, China and the Middle East began arriving from the late 1400s. These disparate groups all played a part in influencing Trinidad and Tobago’s diverse and unique culture.

Birthplace of calypso music and the steel pan, and home to the world famous Trinidad Carnival, the nation boasts one of the most exclusive tourism destinations in the world (Tobago) and an emerging eco-tourism sector.

Published to commemorate the nation’s 50th anniversary of independence in 2012. Includes more than 200 photographic images.

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JAMAICA: Absolutely Jamaican culture has touched every corner of the globe. Whether it’s the pulsating rhythms of Bob Marley’s reggae music, dancehall patois or the pounding footsteps of Usain Bolt, the sounds of Jamaica reverberate throughout the world.

Long described as a microcosm of Planet Earth, Jamaica has been influenced by many cultures and traditions. It is a country with a rich history – admittedly of severance and suffering – but, above all, with a will and capacity for survival and achievement.

When Columbus arrived, and beheld the palm-fringed beaches and lush, forested mountains, he described it as the fairest isle he had ever seen. But Jamaica is more than just beach and scenery. It is a rich diversity of cultures and traditions. It is rich in sounds and flavours. It is a feast for the senses.

Jamaica is Rasta and reggae; rum and rhythm; jerk and jazz; coffee and calypso. Lavishly illustrated throughout, Jamaica: Absolutely looks beyond the beach and gives an insight into the cultural, historical and social aspects of Jamaica. Includes more than 200 photographic images.

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ANGUILLA: Tranquillity Wrapped in Blue With its pristine, white-sand beaches, washed by crystal-clear waters, this British Overseas Territory embodies tranquillity itself. The atmosphere is one of peace and serenity that allows visitors to relax, unwind and immerse themselves in the ultimate Caribbean vacation.

The most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean, Anguilla is one of the world’s most exclusive tourism destinations. And its year-round nautical traditions are an added attraction. Anguilla is also home to a thriving community of artists producing a diverse range of artforms including woodcrafts, sculpture, pottery and paintings.

But, above all, its people are renowned for their friendliness and hospitality.

Away from the beach, history and artistry come together in the annual Carnival, where pageantry and ‘pan’ celebrate Antiguan and Barbudan culture, set to the sounds of calypso music. Antigua and Barbuda also plays host to a number of sailing events, including Antigua Sailing Week, which is the Caribbean’s oldest regatta. Includes more than 200 photographic images.

This definitive guide provides an insight into the nation’s history, local customs and traditions, its people and places, and its successes and achievements.

Includes more than 350 photographic images.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION A LONG JOURNEY: The History of the Derby West Indian Community Association (DWICA) The main purpose of this book is to reflect, commemorate and chronicle the contribution of Britain’s pioneering Windrush Generation, particularly those that settled in Derby. It demonstrates the vitality of the Caribbean community and their social, cultural and economic value to the city. It also charts the arrival and challenges faced by those who migrated from the Caribbean.

The Derby West Indian Association (DWIA) was founded in 1955 as a means to serve members of the local Caribbean community and to help them settle into a foreign land. In the early 1980s, the Association then established the Derby West Indian Centre and later achieved charitable status in 1989. The word “community” was then added to its name to become the Derby West Indian Community Association (DWICA).

DWICA has been the “catalyst and rock” of the Caribbean community that settled in Derby through the activities it provides and the services it offers.

This book charts the work of the Association and the work of the many people committed to the Caribbean heritage community and to the celebration of Black culture. It is an informative and unique resource for schools and also the general reader, as well as a source for those interested in the many aspects of Britain’s multicultural society.

It is dedicated to the pioneering members of the Windrush Generation and to those who had the vision and determination to establish such an essential and worthwhile organisation. DWICA continues to serve the needs of their community and to provide a legacy for the generations to come. And the journey continues.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WEST INDIAN CHURCH HISTORY Compiled by Rev. Arthur Dayfoot and Rev. Roscoe Pierson This book offers a comprehensive annotated guide to books and other source materials for the study of Christianity in the English-speaking Caribbean. It also includes many similar items relating to neighbouring territories – Spanish, Dutch and French – and to other religious bodies in the Caribbean area.

This is a companion volume to Dr Dayfoot’s history, The Shaping of the West Indian Church, 1492-1962. It also includes materials concerning the forty years since 1962. The bibliography has been compiled over many years in co-operation between two scholars who served churches in the Caribbean. Many others have contributed information and advice.

“Not only does this work cover the five hundred years of Christian activity in the West Indies, but it is arranged in a manner which should be of considerable help to researchers.” Rev. Canon Noel Titus, Codrington College

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WEST INDIAN HISTORY AND LITERATURE Frank Birbalsingh This book offers a fresh view by West Indian authors themselves of a region known mainly for delights of its sun, sand and sea. The book not only examines problems of division in racial, ethnic, class and colour relations in the Anglophone Caribbean, it also reveals regional resources of imagination and creativity that have already produced, in Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul, two Nobel laureates in literature.

While the volume recalls rare, perhaps forgotten texts by authors such as Eric Walrond (Tropic Death), Claude McKay (Home to Harlem) and memoirs by Joyce Gladwell (Brown Face Big Master), Lorna Goodison (From Harvey River) and Rachel Manley (Horses in Her Hair), most chapters delve into works, mainly of fiction or poetry, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day; and although, as elsewhere, women writers appeared long after male authors in the Caribbean, of eighty-one authors considered in the volume, twenty-nine are women.

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THE EMPTY SLEEVE: The Story of the West India Regiments of the British Army Brian Dyde On 31 January 1927, the West India Regiment was disbanded after parading for the last time at Up Park Camp in Kingston, Jamaica. The ceremony marked the end of over 130 years of continuous service of West Indian troops in the British Army.

Raised in 1795 from among the slave population of the West Indies, the West India Regiments proved invaluable to the British cause during the Napoleonic Wars. From a maximum of twelve in 1800 there were never less than two such regiments in existence until 1920, serving throughout the Caribbean and in all the British West African colonies.

In tracing the fascinating, but at the same time sad and disturbing, history of these regiments, this book also examines the way in which Black soldiers, regardless of loyalty, devotion to duty and skill at arms, were never fully accepted in a white man’s army.

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A BLACK STUDIES PRIMER: Heroes and Heroines of the African Diaspora Keith A.P. Sandiford This is an essential text for students and scholars of Black history and also the general reader. It features over 1,000 biographies of historical and contemporary Black figures that have made a significant contribution to the development of modern civilization. It is a celebration of the impact made by Black people in areas such as politics, engineering, agriculture, entertainment, literature, medicine, sport and philosophy, to name but a few.

This easy-reference, encyclopaedic work has been compiled in order to fill the gaps in Black Studies. Both interesting and stimulating, it will inspire students and teachers alike to pursue further research, and provides the perfect insight into Black heritage and culture.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

51

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION CARIBBEAN CHALLENGES: Sir Shridath Ramphal’s Collected Counsel

WRITING GENDER INTO THE CARIBBEAN: Selected Essays 1988 to 2020

Sir Shridath Ramphal

Patricia Mohammed

In this important book, the author states: “It is a time for reflection everywhere, but, rather specially, a time for reflection in the Caribbean; and I would urge that the backdrop of our reflection should not be the Caribbean as hapless takers of history’s ordained lot, but as makers of our own way in a less than benign world. We have been both over the millennia – takers and makers; but we have been enough of the latter to speak plausibly and proudly today of a ‘Caribbean civilisation’. As makers of our way in the world, the answers to these questions about the future should be in our keeping, however arduous the challenges to sustained advancement.”

This collection takes us on a journey of exploration whose compass is feminist thought, and whose goal is a better understanding of the centrality of gender roles and relations in Caribbean society.

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CRUMBLED SMALL: The Commonwealth Caribbean in World Politics Sir Ronald Sanders This candid account of the situation of Caribbean small states in the global community is written by a former participant in many of the deliberations of Caribbean governments. Sanders declares, “The Caribbean is in crisis.” Preferential markets for traditional Caribbean products are gone; the financial services sector is under siege; and tourism is endangered by natural disasters as well as constant leakage of its earnings from Caribbean economies. Drug trafficking has contributed significantly to rising levels of crime. And the international community is not doing enough to ensure that these small states do not avoid conditions that will threaten their survival.

The conclusion of this book is compelling: Governments have to face-up to the crisis, state it boldly to their people and the international community, and act resolutely to overcome it in the only way that is sensible – and that is to make their small countries bigger through arrangements of joint governance that are so patently necessary to make them more viable.

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CORRUPTION: Law, Governance and Ethics in the Commonwealth Caribbean Derrick V. McKoy Corruption is a political problem in developing countries. At every level, there are anecdotal stories of unjust enrichment, shady deals and downright criminality. Persons within and connected to the political process have used and abused their positions for personal gain and, ultimately, taint and undermine the governance of these societies. Corruption exists alongside an overbearing bureaucracy, complex rules and regulations and, generally, inefficiency in the delivery of service to the ordinary citizen.

This book explains why it is important to study anti-corruption regimes and sets out the existing state of knowledge on the subject. The author explores how governments are addressing the problem and includes the emerging law on the subject, including the law on bribery, misconduct in public office, judicial misconduct and contemporary anti-corruption legislation. Special consideration is given to the role of the constitutions when examining questions of the corruption of public officials.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

The revolutionary act of imprinting gender into Caribbean thought is celebrated by Patricia Mohammed as she brings together decades worth of her critical essays that have influenced directions in feminism and in social thinking. A primary player in an ever-evolving Caribbean gender discourse, she has produced an interdisciplinary manifesto that establishes founding moments and ongoing debates in gender and feminist theory and feminist political strategy in the region.

This book establishes a chronology that is faithful to the evolving concepts and ideas in the field of gender studies, while demonstrating that collaborative affinities across shared yet different histories remain the backbone of the ongoing feminist project of reconstructing knowledge. In the face of narratives that cast shadows on the value of evolutionary progress, Mohammed encourages us to take pause and recognise how far gender scholars and feminists have come in leaving the world more gender equitable than we found it.

Paperback, £30.00 / US $42.00 UK customers SAVE £18.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THE MODERN BOOK OF MUSLIM NAMES This straightforward and easy-to-use reference book includes more than 2,500 names and what they mean.

Choosing a name for your child is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. It is a name that your child will carry with them for their entire life, so it is important to choose a name that will suit your child well. And this book provides a suitable point from which to start.

Paperback, £7.99 / US $12.00 UK customers SAVE £3.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS Since the early 1980s, Hansib Publications has been helping authors – and aspiring authors – from across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in the UK and North America bring their stories to life. We provide an outlet for the many voices that remain unheard and publish all genres of fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives.

With editorial and logistical support from an experienced team, plus a range of affordable options, getting your book published could not be easier. All manuscripts are considered, and the books we publish are available from a global network of booksellers.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you share your story with the world!

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com TEL./TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956 WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION REFLECTIONS AND OPINIONS

IRA ALDRIDGE: Famous Speeches

Désirée Patricia Bernard

Martin Hoyles

This collection of speeches, by a former Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice, provides an opportunity to benefit from the excellent intellect, research and reasoning that make the author one of the leading contemporary judicial and legal thinkers in the Caribbean. Désirée Bernard went into practice in Guyana and was elevated to the Bench, becoming the first woman to be so appointed. She rose to the post of Chief Justice, becoming the first woman in the British Commonwealth to hold that office. She later became Head of the Judiciary of Guyana when she was appointed to the post of Chancellor. Upon its inauguration, Désirée Bernard was the first and only female judge to sit on the Caribbean Court of Justice. She also examines the role of women; “the power behind the throne” in the home, the society and in the legal profession, with characteristic and incisive humour as well.

Ira Aldridge was an amazing man. As a ten-year-old working-class Black boy in New York, he ran away to sea and was nearly sold into slavery. In 1824, when he was seventeen, he came to London and within months was playing Othello. By the time of his death in 1867, he was the most famous actor in the whole of Europe. He appeared on stage in more than 250 theatres in Britain and Ireland and more than 225 venues on the Continent.

Much of the international legislation to which many of the world’s states are now signatories have benefited from the sterling contributions of Désirée Bernard.

Paperback, £14.99 / US $22.00

This book presents some of the speeches from the plays which he performed, along with extensive commentaries. It also includes an introduction dealing with colour and gender casting, acting style, audience and politics, and Aldridge’s legacy. It is essential reading for drama students and actors, as well as for the general reader. “... a wealth of information on the principal roles Aldridge played, setting each in an illuminating historical context and telling how audiences responded to the many different characters he portrayed.” Professor Bernth Lindfors, University of Texas

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“An excellent introduction to Ira Aldridge, bringing out his amazing talent and influence. ... inspiration for actors, both black and white. It is a crucial guide for drama students...” Ray Fearon, actor

A PEOPLE’S POLITICAL HISTORY OF GUYANA, 1838-1964

“A well researched, thorough and comprehensive account of Ira Aldridge’s life and career. The triumphs and challenges he faced and overcame, along with the historical context of the theatrical world, are illustrated with depth and insight. A real tour de force.” Oku Ekpenyon, historian

Kimani S.K. Nehusi

Paperback, £9.99 / US $15.00

This work is a multi-disciplinary reconstruction, analysis and evaluation of the development, organisation and mobilisation of political consciousness in Guyana between the legal termination of physical enslavement in 1838 and the eve of independence in 1966. Guyanese transformed themselves from disempowered colonial subjects to citizens of variable levels of awareness and empowerment during those one hundred and twenty-six years of struggle.

A critical dialogue is maintained throughout the text with a multitude of sources of numerous kinds. Trajectories in economic and social development, the evolving sense of Guyanese nationality, the prevailing social and political values, attitudes and behaviours and the resulting mood of the country at critical junctures in its history, as well as the Caribbean background, are regularly updated and skilfully interwoven into the text to continuously illuminate the evolving story. The result is a single, continuous, carefully nuanced, well balanced and superbly organised narrative that presents the complex political evolution of the country in an easily intelligible and extremely readable text.

eBook, £4.99 / US $5.99 Available now from Amazon or Kobo

THE EVOLUTION OF WRITING IN ENGLISH BY AND ABOUT EAST INDIANS OF GUYANA, 1838-2018 Ameena Gafoor This is a bibliography of creative writing, literary criticism, visual arts, social history, anthropology, law, governance, politics and journalism. Many indentured Indians shipped to British West Indian plantations were literate and brought a number of sacred books among their possessions. They were each versed in many dialects and kept the literate culture alive among East Indians in those oppressive times. Yet, a hundred years after the cessation of the indentureship system, no listing exists in the Caribbean region of the writings that have evolved by East Indians since their dislodgement from India. This bibliography attempts to provide a permanent record of the evolution of such writings.

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THE IDEOLOGY OF RACISM Samuel Kennedy Yeboah The manifestation and symptoms of racial discrimination against Black people may differ from one country to the other, but the author demonstrates that the origin and development of this racial problem are either identical or at least very similar. This in-depth analysis traces the history and development of Western racism, the ideology which underpins it, and the power which makes it operable. Particularly aimed at schools, colleges and universities, this important book is a major contribution to multicultural education studies.

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THE WONDERFUL YOU: Find your purpose and live the life of your dreams... now Courtney Alexander Smith, PhD This innovative self-help book is designed to help readers find their purpose and use their unique gifts and talents to create their ideal life. Based on practical experience, inspirational case studies, metaphysical insights and cutting-edge research, the author provides tried-and-tested guidance to help achieve extraordinary success in all areas of life.

Paperback, £15.00 / US $22.00 • eBook, £5.00 / US $6.00

Paperback, £10.99 / US $16.00 • eBook, £7.14 / US $8.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Bookshelf • NON-FICTION THE STATE OF BLACK BRITAIN: Volume One Dr Aaron Haynes First published in 1983, and updated in 1996, this book added a welcome insight into the debate about race relations in Britain from a Black perspective and shifted the agenda from that being established by the Scarman Report which was essentially about police/community relations, institutional racism and positive discrimination.

Those issues were controversial then, as they are now, but the heat generated by the discussions led to more marginal programmes, much more paper policies on equal opportunities and limited real gains for ethnic minorities as a whole in Britain.

This book not only provides a useful historical basis of where we were and how we got here, but contributes both to the thinking of what needs to be done and how to contribute to the making of a just society in which everyone has an equal chance to learn, live and work free from racial prejudice and discrimination and free from the fear of racial harassment and violence.

Paperback, £8.95 / US $14.00 UK customers SAVE £2.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THE STATE OF BLACK BRITAIN: Volume Two Dr Aaron Haynes This second volume examines the absence of policies directed at the needs of the Black communities and argues that the Thatcher revolution, with its emphasis on individualism and its rejection of community, did not only affect white society, but had a traumatic effect on the development of the multi-coloured state of Britain.

The gains of the 1970s were slowed down and in some cases put into reverse. The struggle for recognition and acceptance became more difficult and complicated. It was more than the problems of migration and racial discrimination; it was also the challenge of living in a rapidly changing society, experiencing its own crisis of identity.

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FACING THE CHALLENGE: A Report of the First National All-Party Convention of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority Councillors This first national convention was a key and historic event for Black, Asian and ethnic minority people in British Local Government. Held in 1995, it was attended by more than 50 per cent of all Black, Asian and ethnic minority councillors in Great Britain.

Published in 1996, this report includes the findings of a national survey of councillors. The results indicate that there is a long and hard struggle ahead to share power and to influence the work of local government so that it is inclusive of Black and ethnic minority communities.

There is clearly a race equality agenda for the new millennium. Through local government this agenda can bring together diverse communities to tackle discrimination and disadvantage and to influence mainstream policies.

By reflecting the race dimension in all economic, social and public policy matters and by making a commitment to integrate the needs and interests of Black and ethnic minority communities, Britain will become a fairer society and a stronger community.

BLACK DEATHS IN POLICE CUSTODY AND HUMAN RIGHTS: The Failure of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry David Mayberry This book provides an insight into one of the most disturbing and under-reported issues to affect ethnic minorities in the UK. Through an assessment of diversity literature and interviews with police officers, it highlights the limited commitment to fulfilling Macpherson’s recommendations and the value of diversity training to operational policing. Against the backdrop of Black deaths in police custody, the book questions the extent to which ‘institutionalised racism’ has been genuinely challenged.

In October 2007, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) became operational. This development will place a growing emphasis on public bodies, such as the police, to meet their obligations as laid out in the Human Rights Act (1998). By drawing attention to a tragic and little-known problem, this book attempts to offer a genuine agenda for change.

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THE USA IN SOUTH AMERICA and Other Essays Cheddi Jagan. David Dabydeen (Ed.) This collection of essays begins and ends with Cheddi Jagan’s revelation of political and electoral corruption in Guyana, and his moving sense of the plight of Guyanese people under the illegal regime of the PNC. The maladministration and kleptomania which Dr Jagan saw as the defining features of the PNC Government were compounded by Cold War politics. “... there is no Caribbean leader who has been so frequently cheated of office; none who has been so grossly misrepresented.” George Lamming

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HANSIB PUBLICATIONS Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

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WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION PERSPECTIVES ON CARIBBEAN FOOTBALL Edited by Christopher A.D. Charles The people of the Caribbean are passionate about football, the ‘beautiful game’ that evokes strong emotions and fervent support. This expression of love and passion for the sport reaches its zenith every four years during the World Cup competition.

However, only two Commonwealth Caribbean countries have qualified for the competition – Jamaica in 1998 and Trinidad and Tobago in 2006.

Despite their qualification, these countries and others continue to struggle to reach subsequent World Cups. This book focuses on the state of football in the Caribbean and the obstacles and opportunities that are linked to the growth of the sport.

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FROM RANJI TO ROHAN: Cricket and Indian Identity in Colonial Guyana, 1890s-1960s Clem Seecharan From the late 19th century, cricket was central to being West Indian in the British West Indies. By the 1890s a small Indian middle class in British Guiana (Guyana), descendants of ‘bound coolies’ taken from India after slavery, began to advance their own credentials of belonging to the region. They sought to forge an identity inspired by Mother India’s cultural resurgence, in conjunction with the Creole sensibility of their new homeland, permeated by British imperial culture.

The mastery of the great Indian cricketer in England, Prince Ranjitsinhji ‘Ranji’ (1872-1933), who possessed the imagination of the cricketing world before the Great War, stirred Indo-Guyanese to accelerated proficiency in the game.

They claimed him as their own, as an antidote to the ‘coolie’ stain.

This book explores the role of cricket in shaping Indo-Guyanese identity, from Ranji’s example, through the seminal achievement of cricketers such as J.A. Veerasawmy and Chatterpaul ‘Doosha’ Persaud, to the reliable craftsmanship of Joe Solomon and the mercurial genius of Rohan Kanhai.

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THE RISE OF WEST INDIAN CRICKET: From Colony to Nation Frank Birbalsingh This essential book recalls the events, issues, attitudes and personalities that were central to the evolution of West Indian cricket.

Historical reflection is combined with cricket reminiscence from the 1920s to the 1960s – the most critical years. Four decades of West Indian cricket are vividly recreated and examined with loving care and accuracy. It features the Headley Era; the post-war years; the three Ws; Ram & Val; the West Indies under Gerry Alexander; the West Indies under Frank Worrell; the West Indies under Garfield Sobers; and the writings of V.S. Naipaul, Edward Brathwaite and C.L.R. James.

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INDIAN-CARIBBEAN TEST CRICKETERS AND THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY Frank Birbalsingh If West Indies Test cricket betrays divisive values of race, class and colour inherited from a colonial history of plantation slavery and indenture, it also reflects a paradoxical power of resistance to this colonial legacy.

In a region well known for such divisiveness, this book considers cricket’s capacity, at least, in reducing, if not transcending, division through its focus on collective team activity in the quest for identity.

The careers of all the Indian-Caribbean Test cricketers who represented West Indies up to the end of 2013 are chronicled, including the Test victory over England at Lord’s in 1950, Ramadhin’s haul of seven wickets for 49 runs against England in 1957 at Edgbaston, Solomon’s two miraculous run-outs in 1960 against Australia, Kanhai’s ‘scorched earth’ 77 runs against England at the Oval in 1963 and Chanderpaul’s glorious century off 69 balls against Australia at Bourda in 2003.

Paperback, £11.99 / US $18.00 • eBook, £7.79 / US $9.00 UK customers SAVE £3.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THEY GAVE THE CROWD PLENTY FUN: West Indian Cricket and its Relationship with the British-resident Caribbean Diaspora Colin Babb In 1948, the Empire Windrush sailed from Jamaica with more than 400 Caribbean migrants seeking to create a new future in Britain. Two years later, the West Indies cricket team beat England for the first time on English soil at Lord’s. For some Caribbean migrants, and their descendants who settled in Britain from the 1950s onwards, West Indies cricket offered a source of self-esteem. Whether they were passionate cricket fans or not, cricket provided some of the growing diaspora in Britain with an opportunity to express a collective sense of West Indian identity.

This book reflects on events that influenced the development of the social impact of cricket on British Caribbean communities from the arrival of the Windrush onwards. It also thoughtfully explores factors which have challenged cricket’s position as a social force for the current descendants of the Windrush generation.

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AN ABOUNDING JOY: Essays on Sport Ian McDonald. Compiled, edited and annotated by Clem Seecharan Eminent poet, thinker and intellectual Ian McDonald has written more than 1,500 articles over the last four decades. Shortly after the founding of Stabroek News in Guyana in 1986, he commenced a weekly column covering literature, politics, history, economics, philosophy and sport. His elegantly-written essays on sport feature tennis, squash and boxing, but it is McDonald’s revered sport, cricket, that predominates in this collection. The latter encompasses the history of the game, including its place in the soul of the West Indian people in addition to its contemporary problems and challenges.

These essays sparkle with the erudition and lyrical energy of Ian McDonald, but they also endeavour to provoke – challenging readers to rethink. Easily accessible, they could be read randomly because they are self-contained.

This is one of the most refined collections of writing on sport published on the Caribbean and beyond. It will be intoxicating to sport fans. It will give abounding joy to anyone who reads it.

eBook, £7.99 / US $9.60 Available now from Amazon or Kobo

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

55

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION BRITISH RULE IN INDIA DURING THE 18th & 19th CENTURIES

INDIA IN THE CARIBBEAN

Dr Bishundut R. Singh

First published in 1987 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in the Caribbean, this collection of essays, poems and prose is written by leading Indian-Caribbean authors and scholars. They reflect upon Indian history and culture in the Caribbean and celebrate the significant contributions made by Indians to the politics, culture and economic progress of the region.

This book traces the events that led to the conquest and subjugation of India by the British East India Company. It focuses on how this trading company was able to use the art of cunning diplomacy, the language of friendship and eventually threat and betrayal to grab Indian territories. The company was able to use its despotic powers to raise revenues to maintain its territorial acquisitions, its large army and all its servants and, in turn, help to sustain the British Empire.

This is not an exhaustive history of India during this time, but describes the economic and social consequences of British rule. It examines how the British were able to play Indian rulers off against each other in order to entice each into the British spider’s web. The book concludes by not only describing the long lasting damage and pain that the British had inflicted on the people of India but also the beneficial things the British had bestowed on India, which came to have a lasting effect on the Indian people.

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Edited by Dr David Dabydeen & Dr Brinsley Samaroo

Indians occupied the old slave quarters and worked on the sugar plantations, inheriting many of the conditions of servitude of the previously enslaved Africans. The essays deal with their subsequent plantation experiences, their active and passive resistance to bondage and exploitation, and their efforts at self-betterment in spite of the injustice and violence they endured.

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COLONIAL EMIGRATION FROM THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY

INDIA: A Wealth of Diversity

Basdeo Mangru

Home to more than 1.3 billion people and more than 1,600 languages, India is as large as Europe, yet more diverse. It is also the world’s largest and most populous parliamentary democracy. With its spectacular array of cultures, of nearly every creed and colour, India’s civilisation is more than five thousand years old. In most of its villages, life has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. But India is also where 21st century technology and centuries-old traditions stand side-by-side. India also experiences every type of climate and landscape, from snow-capped mountains to tropical beaches, and lush rainforests to arid plains.

This book is an abridged version of an exhaustive and unpublished report of 1883. In late 1882, an Indian government civil servant conducted a comprehensive study of issues relating to the export of Indian labour overseas from the Presidency.

This book features, among others, the caste system, cuisine, the sari, sport, music and marriage. All the states are individually featured plus chapters on the tribal peoples of India, Gandhi, the Nehrus, and Independence, to name just a few. Includes more than 200 photographic images.

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KANPUR TO KOLKATA: Labour Recruitment for the Sugar Colonies Basdeo Mangru This unique book provides for the first time a comprehensive assessment of labour recruiting operations in a catchment area from where the great majority of the Caribbean’s East Indians originated.

Besides its insightful analysis of crucial emigration issues, it highlights the grief and trauma of emigrants’ families, particularly the wives left behind in India.

What is most interesting are the personal recollections of returnees with regard to the working and living conditions in the colonies, the uncertainties of the voyage and the socio-economic conditions in Indian villages.

This primary source, ferreted out from the Emigration Proceedings of the Government of India, is an invaluable addition to the existing literature on the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean and elsewhere. It is perhaps the definitive study of recruiting operations in the Bengal Presidency. It provides new insights into such issues as the class and character of colonial recruiters, the state of the labour market, the popularity of recruiting districts in Bihar, prejudices against emigration, depot accommodation and sanitation, family and female recruitment and the correlation between food scarcity and high migration and population pressure and unemployment.

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INDIA: Definitions & Clarifications Reginald Massey Of all the world’s major countries India is surely the most misunderstood and misinterpreted. Worse still, India lovers embrace India with little or no understanding of the country.

Since 1947, ‘India Studies’ and ‘Pakistan Studies’ have become exercises in political spin and vilification.

Myths and legends are held up as facts and plain prejudice is buttressed by so-called historical research. In the cause of creating a national identity and a particular vision of greatness, dangerous doctrines and unpalatable events are either ignored or nimbly explained away. Truth is being sacrificed at the altar of expediency.

Nuggets of information such as rail transportation to Kolkata, the conditions of sub-depots, the entrepreneurial spirit of emigrants and the obstructionist attitude of both families and government officials, are conspicuously absent from other published sources ... until now.

This wide-ranging book sweeps away several religious, cultural, social and historical cobwebs. Fashionable correctness in all its forms is firmly rejected.

Many received notions are proved to be patently false and famous iconic figures are shown to have had failings that affected the country’s future. Encountering this book, therefore, may be shocking to some and uncomfortable to others.

Nevertheless, all who read it will be ever impressed by its rigorous research, cogent arguments and lucid logic.

Paperback, £9.99 / US $15.00

Paperback, £14.99 / US $23.00 • Hardback, £30.00 / US $45.00

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56

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: On Race, Faith and Life

SPEECHES BY ERROL BARROW

Bishop Dr Joe Aldred

Edited by Yussuff Haniff

This collection of articles, lectures, talks, sermons, homilies and presentations emerges from Joe Aldred’s work as a Black male Christian; a bishop in a Pentecostal church; a broadcaster; writer; public speaker; and social commentator. His personal reflections address such themes as race, the Bible, the Black Church, ecumenism, politics, multiculturalism, Christmas, money, leadership, destiny and parenting.

This diverse mix of writings reflect an eclectic life and ministry in which a mixed-portfolio of roles has been an ever-present companion.

Errol Walton Barrow was among the dominant figures in the political life of Barbados for more than two decades. His contribution to the economic development of Barbados has never been in doubt, acknowledged even by his critics.

BISHOP DR JOE ALDRED is an ecumenist, broadcaster, writer and speaker.

He is a bishop in the Church of God of Prophecy; Secretary for Minority Ethnic Christian Affairs at Churches Together in England; a presenter on BBC Radio; and author and editor of several books and articles.

Errol Barrow preached a gospel of economic self-reliance for the Englishspeaking Caribbean, and self-respect for the Black people in Barbados and beyond. This collection represents a portion of some his significant speeches, made over the years, and reflects the kind of philosophy and thinking that guided his actions both in and out of government.

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THE WEST INDIANS: Portrait of a People Jacques Compton Before the arrival of Europeans in the West Indies in the 15th century, the region was inhabited by Amerindian peoples. But within a decade of their arrival, the Europeans had exterminated most of the indigenous peoples and had begun to replace them with enslaved Africans.

Cultural anthropologist and historian, Gilberto Freyre stated that when the Africans arrived in the ‘New World’ they ceased being African. Instead, they were ‘West Indian Blacks’ who were slaves. This work draws from history, anthropology, sociology, economics, literature and culture, and examines Freyre’s contention. It also looks at the forces and methods used by the Europeans in what the author calls the “de-Africanisation of the Africans” and the creation of the West Indians.

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MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS Since the early 1980s, Hansib Publications has been helping authors – and aspiring authors – from across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in the UK and North America bring their stories to life. We provide an outlet for the many voices that remain unheard and publish all genres of fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives.

With editorial and logistical support from an experienced team, plus a range of affordable options, getting your book published could not be easier. All manuscripts are considered, and the books we publish are available from a global network of booksellers.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you share your story with the world!

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

He reshaped the economic relationships among the English-speaking Caribbean countries by leading the formation, first, of the Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA) and, later, the much broader Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).

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THE ART OF MALI OLATUNJI: Painterly Photography from Antigua and Barbuda Mali Olatunji and Paget Henry This is a masterful photographic work on Antigua and Barbuda that captures this twin-island state in images. In addition to images of home, these photographs also take account of the migratory experiences of Antiguans and Barbudans, and include powerful images of New York and London.

Adding even more to the riches and power of this book is the engaging story that it tells about the life of the artist and his aesthetic development.

The special feature that sets Olatunji’s photographic essay apart is what he calls ‘a woodist/jumbie aesthetic’. Like surrealism, cubism and other aesthetics, woodism is a visual summary of Olatunji’s way of looking at life. In particular, it sees the world through the wooded eyes of ‘jumbies’. In Antigua and Barbuda, and much of the Caribbean, jumbies are believed to make their post-body home in trees, and in particular, silk cotton trees. Using his striking woodist/ jumbie aesthetic, Olatunji has used his camera to paint images which have come together to produce a photographic essay on Antigua and Barbuda.

Softcover, £19.99 / US $30.00 UK customers SAVE £8.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

CARIBBEAN PUBLISHING IN BRITAIN: A Tribute to Arif Ali Asher & Martin Hoyles This book traces the tradition of Caribbean publishing in Britain, starting in the nineteenth century with the revolutionary Jamaican Robert Wedderburn, Celestine Edwards from Dominica and the Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams. From the first half of the twentieth century, it records the work of the two Jamaicans Harold Moody and Marcus Garvey, and also Ras T. Makonnen from Guyana.

After the Second World War, two key publishers were Claudia Jones from Trinidad and Edward Scobie from Dominica.

It also records the anti-racist campaigning, community work and publishing activities of Arif Ali since his establishment of Hansib Publications in 1970.

TEL./TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956

Softcover, £9.99 / US $15.00

WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

57

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION WAKE PEOPLE WAKE: The Sacred and the Profane Rawle Winston Titus This is a socio-anthropological study of the wake and waking habits that early Tobago folk practiced during their funerary rites. The study not only deals with the people and their rituals, it also presents a perspective of the way other communities and early peoples worldwide dealt with death and the hereafter. It also provides an insight into the way superstition and the supernatural constantly played a part in these customs.

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RUM, RIVALRY & RESISTANCE: Fighting for the Caribbean Spirit Tony Talburt No other spirit beverage encapsulates the essence of Caribbean social and cultural atmosphere quite like rum. Indeed, Caribbean rum, like sugar, has helped to influence and shape many aspects of the region’s political, economic and social experience.

While Caribbean rum is not often associated with politics, in this unique study, Dr Tony Talburt shows how this popular spirit not only has a social and cultural significance but has also been the subject of a number of political decisions by governments in the Caribbean, the USA and Europe.

Although the primary focus of this book is centred upon the period in the second half of the 20th century amid the political conflict to market Caribbean rums in the European Union, it also provides an overview of the political significance of Caribbean rum in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It concludes with a number of recommendations and strategies that may have to be explored in greater depth by Caribbean rum producers so that the sugarrum industries might survive in the 21st century.

Paperback, £12.99 / US $20.00 • eBook, £6.99 / US $8.50 UK customers SAVE £3.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

Books & eBooks published by Hansib Publications are also available worldwide from many booksellers including Amazon

DYSLEXIA FROM A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE Asher & Martin Hoyles

BLACK IDENTITY IN THE 20th CENTURY: Expressions of the US and UK African Diaspora Edited by Mark Christian A collection of essays that break new ground by examining Black identity on both sides of the Atlantic in relation to the African Diaspora, and provides a firm collaboration between Black British and African American scholars. Too often, Black experiences have been viewed in isolation from one another.

This collection enables the reader to consider the themes relating to these two important locations. It covers a range of interdisciplinary topics including the examination of Pan-African philosophy and practice, West Africans in Britain (1900-1960), the African American political struggle covering the Civil Rights Movement and Black Nationalism; the impact of Afrocentricity in challenging Western intellectual hegemony, the Black intellectual tradition and the role of Afrocentric social work in the UK. It includes contributions from relatively new voices in the field of Black Studies as well as distinguished scholars.

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BLACK ROUTES: Legacy of African Diaspora Brian A. Belton A collection of commentaries and biographies featuring a distinguished group of Black theorists, writers and influential social revolutionaries. It encompasses some well-known and seminal figures from the African Diaspora – from both sides of the Atlantic – such as Bernie Grant and Kwame Toure.

Cultural studies, poetry and political activism are represented by the likes of Stuart Hall, Gwendolyn Brooks and Ericka Huggins. The graceful yet revolutionary voices of Assata Shakur and Michael Akintaro are set alongside the promotion of creative dissidence as espoused by Nawal al-El Saadawi, the examination of Eldridge Cleaver’s ‘politics of redemption’ and Hanan Ashrawi’s ethic of Amanha (trust).

Africa is represented by Peter Mokaba and Joe Slovo, and the transformation of sport to education for life is embodied in the former West Ham United footballer and American National Coach, Clive Charles. Black Routes is a celebration of these principled individuals whose commitment to the rejection of oppression deserves wider acknowledgement.

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Dyslexia is a critical issue worldwide but there is widespread ignorance about it and the consequences can be devastating. Of the 700 books on dyslexia in the British Library, apparently not one is written by a Black author and none deals with the issue of race and culture.

JAMAICANS IN NOTTINGHAM: Narratives and Reflections

How is dyslexia viewed in the Black communities?

What needs to be done to raise awareness? And how can dyslexics themselves become more conscious and confident? This book makes a start by looking at statistics and famous dyslexics, such as Muhammad Ali, Whoopi Goldberg and Benjamin Zephaniah. It considers the historical background and theoretical framework, along with the definitions and examples of what dyslexics experience.

Asher Hoyles is an additional support tutor, specialising in dyslexia, at Newham Sixth Form College in east London. Martin Hoyles taught in Newham secondary schools and at the University of East London.

A collection of personal and reflective interviews and articles that presents narratives of life in Nottingham from individuals of Jamaican heritage who have contributed to the spirit and life of the city and its surrounding areas from the 1940s to the present day. It includes witness accounts relating to many significant events that directly affected Jamaican communities, such as the Nottingham race riots of 1958 and 1981; the Miners’ strikes of the 1980s; and the Nottingham Carnival. This autobiographical and educational text reproduces many photographs and newspaper cuttings.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Norma Gregory

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION WHAT BEING BLACK IS AND WHAT BEING BLACK ISN’T Jacob Whittingham and Biscuit Barack Obama was once the most powerful man in the world, and some people in the media industry refer to Oprah as the most powerful woman in the world, so for the first time, being Black and successful isn’t just about how well you can dance, sing or run.

From Zadie Smith to Lewis Hamilton, and Tiger Woods to Kanya King, Black people are succeeding in areas that the world never expected. Yet there’s a flipside to all this: around 70 per cent of teenagers murdered in London are Black; half of all Black families are headed by a single parent; and 12 per cent of the UK prison population is Black.

This book is a bold, fresh and honest approach to the problems that exist inside the Black community right now. While we might not like to admit it, there are problems. From the amusing to the violent, and from the silly to the painful, this book does what so many people can’t seem to get right – it defines what being Black is, and what being Black isn’t.

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THE BELIEVERS: The Hidden World of West Indian Spiritualism in New York Dr Glenville C. Ashby This is a fascinating account of a little known and understood aspect of West Indian spiritualism. It is a unique insight into Caribbean life in New York in the midst of many faiths and religions. It is among the first major works whose primary focus is the lives of Caribbean people living in New York. A particularly important facet of the book is the discussion on the links between Haitian history, spirituality and its present social and political situation. The discussion and arguments that will be engendered will assist in lifting the veil of hypocrisy and pretence that so often attend these practices.

Paperback, £10.00 / US $17.99

A DREAM DEFERRED: Guyanese Identity and the Shadow of Colonialism Stephen Spencer Guyana has been shaped by the ruthless self-interest of four centuries of colonialism. After independence in 1966, it was another post-colonial republic which faded from memory in the west. The people of what was British Guiana were determined to forge their own destiny and elected Cheddi Jagan and the multi-ethnic People’s Progressive Party in 1957.

This concise book examines the social, cultural and political aspects of Guyana’s recent troubled history. Divisive colonialism has created a land of contradictions; in the 1950s the promise of a more united freedom was snatched away by British colonial interests and the USA’s Cold War ambitions. Yet despite the polarised ethnic and political divisions, the Guyanese display a remarkable ability to cross boundaries and meld complex cultures. These reflections on the struggle to expel the colonial shadow are based on interviews with political figures, like Cheddi Jagan and Eusi Kwayana, and academics, as well as the insights of ordinary Guyanese people.

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THE PEOPLE’S PROGRESSIVE PARTY OF GUYANA, 1950-1992: An Oral History Frank Birbalsingh This is a collection of interviews with members and opponents of the Party, and with commentators who observed the PPP closely for a long time.

Interviewees include Dr Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Ashton Chase, Eusi Kwayana, Martin Carter, Eric Huntley, and commentators from the wider Caribbean such as Richard Hart, Lloyd Best, George Lamming and George Belle, as well as independent Guyanese observers such as Father Andrew Morrison, a Roman Catholic priest, Randolph George, former Anglican Bishop of Guyana, and David de Caires, a national newspaper editor.

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The reader gets a many-sided view of the origins, crises and personalities of the Party, and of issues of class, colour and ethnicity which, along with external Cold War factors, played a crucial role in the party’s exclusion from power for most of the second half of the twentieth century.

HANSIB PUBLICATIONS

The informal oral medium of the interview makes for a lively text that is more willing to trade punches than staid academic writing.

Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

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FORBIDDEN FREEDOM: The Story of British Guiana Cheddi Jagan First published in 1954, and republished by Hansib Publications, Cheddi Jagan’s Story of British Guiana appeared in the aftermath of the military intervention that removed him from office in the democratically elected government of which he was Premier. Dr Jagan showed how this fitted in to both the colonial policy of Britain and the Cold War spearheaded by the United States. It includes an analysis of ‘Labour and the Colonies’ and shows who are the genuine and who are the false democrats.

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

This is a classic document of anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggle from one of the veteran freedom fighters of the developing world.

TEL/TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956

Paperback, £6.00 / US $12.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

59

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION IMPERIAL AMBITION: Venezuela’s Threat to Guyana

THEMES IN AFRICANGUYANESE HISTORY

This booklet is in furtherance of Guyana’s defence of its sovereignty. It elaborates the themes to which the President spoke when marking the selfdetermination of the people of Guyana 55 years ago.

Editors: Winston F. McGowan, James G. Rose, David A. Granger

On the 50th Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence in 2016, its Government issued the publication, The New Conquistadors: The Venezuelan Challenge to Guyana’s Sovereignty. In this successor publication, the mask of the conquistador is stripped off, revealing the naked visage of Venezuelan imperialism and its ambition to possess two-thirds of Guyana.

This is in two Parts: Part I, updating The New Conquistadors and Part II enlarging its coverage into the phase of more active United Nations involvement and that of the International Court of Justice. Its purpose is to inform the people of Guyana, the Caribbean region and the international community more widely of the shameful imperial quest that drives the Venezuelan threat to Guyana.

The photograph on the front cover is of the prow of Mt. Roraima on whose historic summit the boundaries of Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil intersect – the ‘tri-junction point’. Mt. Roraima is a reminder for all time and to all people of Venezuela’s eastern border. Guyana’s sun sets there – on Mt. Roraima – and always will.

Paperback, £9.99 / US $15.00 • eBook, £4.99 / US $5.99

This book focuses on some of the major developments in the history of the African-Guyanese from the time of their arrival in what were then the Dutch colonies of Essequibo and Berbice in the first half of the 17th century, to the present day.

Most African-Guyanese today are descendants of enslaved Africans who were victims of the forced migration of millions of Africans, largely from West Africa to the Americas, from the 15th to 19th centuries. These captives were not uncivilised barbarians, as some European writers assumed and asserted. Rather, they were members of societies which had been distinguished by significant achievements.

This book, therefore, seeks to deal in a balanced way with the four phases into which historians have often divided Guyanese history: pre-Emancipation; post-Emancipation; pre-Independence; and post-Independence.

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GUYANA: History and Literature

THE NEW CONQUISTADORS: The Venezuelan Challenge to Guyana’s Sovereignty

Frank Birbalsingh

In its attempt to grab more than half of Guyana, Venezuela has relied persistently on fabrications, distortions, propaganda – and on wealth and power.

This booklet (in English and Spanish) provides the facts withheld from the Venezuelan people. It reveals the reality of the Venezuelan crusade during the first fifty years of Guyana’s Independence and shows how, once victims themselves, Venezuela has become the new ‘Conquistador’ in relation to Guyana.

It reveals, also, how Guyana, as one of the smallest states in South America, has turned to the United Nations system and to international justice to liberate it from the plundering stratagems of the political and military forces in Caracas.

An examination of Guyana’s growth as a nation over three hundred and fifty years through more than sixty works of history, biography, memoirs and fiction. It discusses politics, ethnicity, culture, African slavery, Indian indenture, and the fortunes of the two best known Guyanese politicians – Dr Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham.

The book offers the variety and scope of an anthology, perceptions and insights of a literary critic, elegance and style of fine writing, and the thrill of fresh revelation and discovery. From travelogues to books, this volume encompasses wide facets of Guyanese experience.

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GUYANA IN THE WORLD: The First of the First Fifty Years and the Predatory Challenge Shridath Ramphal When Guyana marked the 50th Anniversary of its Independence on 26 May 2016, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs produced an essay on Guyana’s engagement with the world – in two Parts. First, the highlights of its regional and international encounters in the earliest years of Independence, and secondly, the ‘predatory’ challenges it has faced on its borders, particularly from Venezuela. The Venezuelan challenge has preceded Independence and lasted with increasing intensity all of the last fifty years.

Sir Shridath Ramphal has had experience of Guyana’s international experience over the full period of fifty years and has been an active player in both areas of internationalism – the early years and the frontier issues. This book throws new light on several areas of the Venezuelan challenge and looks to its resolution by judicial settlement under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary General.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS Since the early 1980s, Hansib Publications has been helping authors – and aspiring authors – from across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in the UK and North America bring their stories to life. We provide an outlet for the many voices that remain unheard and publish all genres of fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives.

With editorial and logistical support from an experienced team, plus a range of affordable options, getting your book published could not be easier. All manuscripts are considered, and the books we publish are available from a global network of booksellers.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you share your story with the world!

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com TEL./TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956 WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION TRIUMPH FOR UNCLOS: The Guyana-Suriname Maritime Arbitration, A Compilation & Commentary Shridath Ramphal The maritime dispute between Guyana and Suriname which came to a head in 2000, threatened not only relations between the two countries but also the peace and stability of the wider maritime area of the Caribbean. It specifically endangered the ‘equitable and efficient’ utilisation of the resources of the GuyanaSuriname marine basin. That dispute was settled by Arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea after a three-year legal process.

This book tells the story of that dispute between Britain and Holland as the metropoles of Guyana and Suriname, and then between the neighbours themselves as they became independent. It explains the process of peaceful settlement in 2007 through arbitration, and of the triumph of UNCLOS in enabling it.

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YEARS OF HIGH HOPES: A Portrait of British Guiana, 1952-1956, from an American family’s letters home Dorothy Irwin This startlingly detailed depiction of life in the capital city of Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana), sheds light on a seminal period of the colony’s push toward nationhood. Evoking a time when letters were still the sole form of overseas communication, the book compiles the personal correspondence mailed to the United States by a young American couple during the three and a half years they made their home in Georgetown.

This unique collection of letters offers a finely textured glimpse of the capital before, during, and just after that tumultuous era, combining the everyday with such defining events as the colony’s first free election in 1953, the surprising victory of the People’s Progressive Party, the PPP ministers’ brief term in office, and their ouster with the suspension of the constitution and the arrival of British troops.

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CHILDREN OF WATOOKA: A Story of British Guiana Steve Connolly Step into an extraordinary and fascinating world of the little known but remarkable country, British Guiana (now Guyana). Learn about the country’s captivating history from a time before slavery and indenture, through to modern times.

The book is a ‘story of stories’ and features more than eighty people from five different racial backgrounds who have contributed to make this a fascinating read. The stories of Guyanese people as well as of expatriates from Britain, Canada, Holland and the U.S. are included.

THE SHAPING OF A CULTURE: Rituals and Festivals in Trinidad compared with selected counterparts in India, 1990-2014 Satnarine Balkaransingh Trinidad and Tobago reflects the dynamic rhythm of a cosmopolitan mix of cultures where the IndoTrinidadian contribution is significant. This has its genesis in the 19th and early 20th centuries when more than 500,000 contract workers, from various regions of India, were shipped to the Caribbean to arrest the labour crisis in these plantation economies. These indentured immigrants brought their religions, languages, rituals, festivals and cultural practices and planted them in its fertile soil.

This book examines the changes being simultaneously experienced within these rituals and festivals in Trinidad and their counterparts in the respective geographical areas in the ancestral country at the turn of the 21st century. It also examines the Indo-Trinidadians’ influence on other festivals which they encountered in the local landscape, and is a guide to understanding the ethos and collective consciousness of the Trinbagonian lifestyle and the IndoCaribbean diaspora now scattered across the globe.

Softcover, £20.00 / US $30.00 UK customers SAVE £8.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THE WEB OF TRADITION: Uses of Allusion in V.S. Naipaul’s Fiction John Thieme This is a comprehensive study of the fiction of V.S. Naipaul including The Mystic Masseur, A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River.

As well as providing a natural introduction to Naipaul’s fiction, it attempts to locate the precise nature of the tradition to which he belongs through an examination of his use of literary and cultural allusion. It considers the part played in his fiction by such diverse influences as Hindu myth, classical and imperialistic writings, calypso and Hollywood cinema.

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COMMUNICATION, POWER AND CHANGE IN THE CARIBBEAN Paloma Mohamed Communicative power is the ability of a communicative act to realize the intentions of its originators. Communicative acts are goal-directed and rely on varying levels of collaboration in order to achieve their intended objectives. In an interesting polemic, the author argues that variations in communicative power are directly related to variations in other types of power in any society. Therefore, low communicative power is directly related to inequality and social and economic marginalisation.

Readers will also learn about the incredible and little known ties between Guyana and Canada and about the bauxite industry. Working together, the two countries produced forty per cent of the aluminium used by the Allies for aeroplane production during the Second World War.

This book takes a fascinating approach to examining social change in two Caribbean countries. Mohamed evaluates the power of various communicative artefacts produced by various strata in those societies. She continues by investigating what constitutes this power, how it is used, how it is maintained and in whose interests. The result is a richly researched, deeply thoughtful and passionately argued case for placing communication at the core of evaluations of power and change in the world.

Hardback, £18.99 / US $28.00

Paperback, £9.99 / US $18.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

61

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION GLIMPSES OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY: The Art of Garnet Ifill Brinsley Samaroo The sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago no longer dominates the landscape, as it had done for more than 200 years. During this gruelling period, African and Indian labourers toiled in the production of ‘brown gold’: particularly, rum and molasses. By the middle of the 20th century, most of the elements of the industry were undergoing significant changes as modern technology replaced older, less efficient modes of production. At this critical juncture of modernisation, Garnet Ifill, a young and visionary photographer, decided to capture the fading heritage. His unique collection of photographs is, therefore, a permanent reminder of a bygone era.

Garnet Ifill is one of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading photographers. In his long career, he has documented much of the history of the sugar industry. This book reflects one dimension of his prolific photography, which was envisioned as early as 1948 when Ifill’s father was employed as a machinist at a sugar factory in central Trinidad. This made a lasting impression on the young Garnet and he made an early resolve to capture these memories for posterity.

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DEFEATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE AMERICAS: Men’s Work Luke Daniels Domestic violence has blighted society for a very long time, and the pace of change has been slow because men have failed to take responsibility for ending the violence. This book challenges men to take that responsibility seriously, especially the men in government throughout the region. The focus is the Americas since the problem of violence is most urgent there, and where 42 of the world’s 50 most violent cities are located.

This book argues that our history of violence is partly responsible for the “macho culture” endemic in the region, and which is directly linked to domestic violence. Raising awareness about our history of violence will help towards a positive change in attitudes and behaviour. It also charts the region’s history of violence before and after the arrival of Columbus and looks at the effects of genocide and slavery, and how that history impacts on the violence within our societies.

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THE CAPITALIST PARTY MANIFESTO: Defects within our democracy and what we can do to change it!

Christopher W. Morrall This book delves into the inherent faults of the political systems and democracies around the world that are adversely affected by, among others, the prevalence of career politicians, influence from powerful pressure groups, revolving door politics and corruption. The author identifies the reasons why democracy breaks down and why it cannot succeed in its current format. He provides workable solutions and new theories, including the wider participation in politics at all levels and the revamping of the elections process.

LEST WE FORGET: The Experiences of World War II West Indian Ex-Service Personnel Robert N. Murray The West Indian contribution during World War II is a much overlooked chapter in the history of the Allied war effort. Little is known about the heroics, sacrifices and the harsh treatment endured by men and women from the Caribbean who were serving what was then considered the ‘Mother Country’. This book tells their story through oral recollection, and highlights their contribution to the war and the subsequent settlement of a substantial number in Britain.

Predominantly serving in the Royal Air Force, their tales of gallantry and tenacity are told alongside the challenges of cultural differences, climate and racial prejudice.

ROBERT N. MURRAY was born in what was formerly British Guiana (now Guyana) and served in the RAF during the Second World War.

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CHEDDI JAGAN: Selected Speeches, 1992-1994 Edited by David Dabydeen This collection of speeches by the then President of Guyana addresses some of the major issues at the time. They testify to his integrity of vision and his eloquent concern for the potential as well as the plight of the Guyanese people. The crippling burden of foreign debt and its disturbing impact on human development is also highlighted.

The speeches were made at a time of ideological uncertainties, economic depression, escalating crime rates, deadly pollution and racial, ethnic and cultural conflicts. The Caribbean, of course, is not exempt from these tendencies and as a political leader of the 1950s, Jagan is wellplaced to counsel the region. What emerges is his optimism regarding the future of his country and the wider Caribbean region.

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JOURNALISM IN RETROSPECTION: Thirty Years of Reportage Nisar Ali Shah As a young student in Pakistan, Nisar Ali Shah took his first steps into the world of journalism at the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore. He later joined the Times of Karachi before moving to England in 1960.

He worked in London for many years as a reader at The Times and The Sunday Times and later progressed to sub-editor. He then worked as a freelance sub-editor on many London-based publications including The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, South London Press, Middle East Online, TV Times and the Ealing Gazette.

He describes himself as an international journalist and his writing has appeared in a range of publications including The Times Literary Supplement, Al-Hayat, TheNews International, Confluence magazine, Pakistan Times, Asian Times (London), The Voice (London), Eastern Eye (London), Crescent International (Toronto), West Africa Magazine and Diplomatisches Magazin (Germany).

“This is a valuable compote of over 100 succinct and informative articles by the author, subtly expressing critical points of view often banned or derided by the press barons and powerful lobbyists.” Dr James B. Thring, PhD (Cantab)

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • NON-FICTION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Thinking it Through; Making it Happen

A HISTORY OF THEATRE IN GUYANA, 1800-2000

Bhoendradatt Tewarie

A study of 200 years of theatre in Guyana which includes a compilation of related articles extracted from local journals dating back to the early 19th century. It establishes itself as a pioneering and indispensable segment in the history of Guyana and makes a case for the importance of the theatre in the diverse culture of the Guyanese people.

A poignant collection of thoughts and ideas which address the challenges posed by climate change and the innovations required to balance economic, human and environmental considerations. Societies unwilling or unable to adapt to meet these challenges will face costly consequences. However, for those willing to meet them head-on, there are numerous approaches that can be taken to achieve desirable outcomes.

Written from the point of view of the Caribbean, small island developing states and the developing and emerging world, this book focuses on solutions through human imagination, innovation, collaboration, participation and engagement.

Hardback, £14.99 / US $22.00 UK customers SAVE £5.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

LIMITS OF CONSUMPTION: Environmental Degradation and Ancient Wisdom Gauri Shankar Gupta Degradation of the environment and climate change are the most important challenges facing humanity.

For thousands of years humans lived in harmonious relationship with nature, but the industrial revolution marked a major turning point in Earth’s ecology and humans’ relationship with the environment. Today, we are in the midst of a rapid transition to a world where human populations are more crowded and more consuming, simultaneously co-habiting with unparalleled levels of poverty and hunger.

With rapidly increasing consumption, the Earth has come under tremendous pressure and the transition towards sustainability remains a distant dream.

This book aims to bring out the ground realities and the wisdom of our ancestors in a concise and coherent manner to mitigate this serious threat to humanity.

Paperback, £13.99 / US $21.00 • eBook £6.99 / US $8.50 UK customers SAVE £6.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

HANSIB PUBLICATIONS Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Frank Thomasson

This valuable study encompasses the performing arts that the different ethnic groups brought with them. Added to this was the beginnings of the European theatre in 19th century Georgetown which gave rise to the emergence of theatre organised by the East Indian and African Guyanese middle classes in the early 20th century, to the vibrancy of a diverse and socially committed theatre in the 1950s, leading up to Independence.

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THEATRE ARTS Jacques Compton Drama in schools is growing in popularity in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In addition to annual schools drama festivals in some countries, there is also the Caribbean Secondary Schools Drama Festival, which is held in a different nation every two years. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has now included Theatre Arts as one of its subjects, and an increasing number of secondary school students are now taking part. This essential resource book introduces teachers to various aspects of Theatre Arts and helps to prepare students taking the subject for CXC. It will also be useful to the many amateur theatre groups throughout the Caribbean and will assist them to better understand the intricacies of theatrical productions.

JACQUES COMPTON was born in St Lucia and educated in Europe. He has lectured on Caribbean history, literature and culture at universities, colleges and schools in the UK, Europe, the Middle and Far East as well as in the Caribbean. He was Director of Culture with the Government of St Lucia.

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Books & eBooks published by Hansib Publications are also available worldwide from many booksellers including Amazon

PROSPERO’S RETURN: Historical Essays on Race, Culture and British Society Paul B Rich

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

This wide-ranging collection of essays explores the nature and meaning of race and racism in British society and the nature of British and English national identity. Using political, social and cultural sources, the author shows that many of the contemporary issues surrounding the position of Black minorities in British society have a long and complex history.

Areas as diverse as anthropology, eugenics, literary history and housing are discussed. In its rich employment of historical sources, the book shows the powerful strains of racial and national political thought in Britain. At the same time, it reveals the existence of an alternative liberal and radical tradition which can be drawn upon in the construction of alternative models of national identity which include rather than marginalise minorities.

TEL/TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956

Paperback, £8.95 / US $14.00

WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

UK customers SAVE £3.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

63

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY SHORT AND SWEET: A Collection of Guyanese Stories and Fables

BLACK LIGHT VOID: Dark Visions of the Caribbean

Robert J. Fernandes

Marsha Pearce curates a collection of paintings and short stories to explore sensations of place and identity. The anthology casts tropical place in a different light, going beyond what island sunlight renders visible to a space in which the imagination offers illumination. It makes an argument for seeing the Caribbean in the dark and proposes darkness as a critical space for Caribbean aesthetic practices. Pearce asks: What stories lie beyond those experiences lit up by the sun – the light that is a defining feature of the tropics?

This collection of twenty-five short stories and fables chronicles a way of life that is unmistakably Guyanese. Fernandes is a well-known Guyanese adventurer and nature photographer and many of the stories were taken from his life experiences. They provide fascinating snapshots of the Guyanese way of life and include a diverse range of characters, from lost tribes to porknocker wives; from Leroy the laxative man to Ma Bancroft the gun-toting old lady. The fables, however, are a product of his overactive imagination and an ample supply of free time. In these tales he examines the lives of rainbows, raindrops, old dogs, snail hawks and trees from a refreshingly Guyanese perspective.

With a photographer’s perception, Fernandes breathes life into the everchanging backdrop of his often humorous and always poignant stories. Many aspects of this cultural tapestry are fast disappearing and need to be preserved as part of Guyana’s national heritage.

“There is great enjoyment awaiting readers of this first, and hopefully not the last, collection of stories from a great lover of his country and its people.” Stanley Greaves, Guyanese artist and poet

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MARCUS, THE INTREPID VILLAGE BOY Victor Waldron Marcus Gullant was born in a remote village in 1920s British Guiana. Growing up, he was restless and ambitious and generally misunderstood by his peers.

His attentions were drawn to Teresa, one of the village elite, but her status, and that of her family, was beyond his reach. His solution to this dilemma was to join the British Army at a time when the Second World War was merely two years old. Enlisting as a merchant seaman, he made the perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the ‘Mother Country’. Marcus rose to the challenge of military life as well as to the challenges he faced through discrimination and hostility as a Black man.

But his hard work and determination opened a world of possibilities, including the pursuit of the woman he loved.

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MOVING VOICES: Black Performance Poetry Asher & Martin Hoyles This book traces the African oral tradition, through African American and Caribbean culture, to Black performance poetry in England, and examines the many factors which have shaped this oral poetry.

Contemporary poets discuss their childhood and school experiences, who influenced them, where they have performed, their favourite poets and poems, and their advice to budding poets.

The poets include those born in the Caribbean – James Berry, Valerie Bloom, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, John Lyons and Cuban Redd; and those born in England – Adisa, Patience Agbabi, Michael Groce, Cynthia Hamilton, Asher Hoyles, Levi Tafari and Benjamin Zephaniah.

An accompanying CD contains a selection of recordings by each poet.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Edited by Marsha Pearce

Through a dialogic presentation of work by Trinidadian contemporary visual artist Edward Bowen, and short stories by Trinidadian, award-winning writers, Pearce shapes a journey into the dark and unpredictable.

MARSHA PEARCE is a curator and scholar of cultural studies. She is based in Trinidad where she teaches at the University of the West Indies. “... the sumptuous book is rich with handsomely reproduced images and a solid collection of good, well-written stories.” Teresa White, Trinidad & Tobago Guardian “... a rare, interdisciplinary reflection on art. This is a book to read and re-read, enjoy and study. The cover, one of Bownen’s paintings, is intriguing and inviting.” Debbie Jacob, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday “... beautiful and serious work... we experience Edward Bowen’s paintings, which are for me, about light coming out of darkness and of darkness within the light. These works are truly of the Caribbean, and yet rarely display any of the usual tropes that might suggest that. The paintings are one of the most significant bodies of work to have been made in the Caribbean region over the last thirty years.” Peter Doig, Contemporary Artist “This rich and beautiful book could not have appeared at a better time.

We owe Pearce a great debt for assembling a treasure trove of remarkable images by a most enigmatic and gifted artist and stories by daring, accomplished authors who write back to them movingly and surprisingly and always with originality. The result is a unique and important contribution to our 21st century cultural and intellectual life.” Marina Salandy-Brown, Founder and President of Bocas Lit Fest

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MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS Since the early 1980s, Hansib Publications has been helping authors – and aspiring authors – from across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in the UK and North America bring their stories to life. We provide an outlet for the many voices that remain unheard and publish all genres of fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives.

With editorial and logistical support from an experienced team, plus a range of affordable options, getting your book published could not be easier. All manuscripts are considered, and the books we publish are available from a global network of booksellers.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you share your story with the world!

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com TEL./TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956 WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY OCTOBER AFTERNOON

SEND OUT YOU HAND

Paulette A. Ramsay

Dorbrene O’Marde

A collection of carefully crafted, layered, rich, subtle and resonant poems which are fanciful, teasing and simultaneously sombre.

This story follows the intersecting contemporary lives of business men and women, socio-political activists and academics as they attempt to chart a new course towards Caribbean regional unity. The failed West Indies Federation (1958-1962) provides the political background and the less-than-successful present efforts of politicians at regional integration provide impetus for creative thinking, new approaches, different industries and new cultural possibilities.

“In these bold poems of desire, love, subjectivity and writing as the path, all stitched together on the strong thread of memory, Paulette Ramsay takes readers into the rich interior landscape of a poet exploring the process and finding joy.” Opal Palmer Adisa, author of Until Judgement Comes PAULETTE A. RAMSAY is an author of fiction and poetry. Her short stories and poems have been published in BIM, the Caribbean journal for the arts, and in the Caribbean Journal of Education.

Paperback, £7.99 / US $12.00 UK customers SAVE £2.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

FOREIGN BODY: What if it happens to you?

Laurene Marcia’s cryptic pregnancy produces a son for her apparently infertile husband, Marcus. They are delighted but Maria, the matriarch of the husband’s family, has doubts and struggles to balance her religious beliefs with her tragic past. She harbours secrets that disrupt her relationship with her family, especially with her son’s wife.

Marcus is a self-assured man but is consumed by his mother’s treatment of Marcia and avoids any conflict with her. His sister is resilient and accepts responsibility for dealing with all the family’s problems while concealing her own anxieties. Results from DNA tests only cause further confusion that reverberates within the medical establishment as well as in the family.

Paperback, £9.99 / US $15.00 • Hardback, £15.00 / US $22.00 eBook £4.99 / US $5.99 UK customers SAVE £2.00 or £6.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THE INVISIBLE BECOME VISIBLE – BOOK THREE: The Great Planet Heist Ben Lowe The third in a trilogy of novels about history’s forgotten or too little remembered indigenous people who were colonised and enslaved by Europeans. It continues the dramatic story of the Bantu family as it faces new Portuguese and British intruders.

Dramatic instances of indigenous people fighting for their culture and their way of life against invaders are portrayed. In South Africa, the Zulus, in particular the battle of Isandlwana, is a major victory for the Zulus against the British, but with a grim aftermath.

And in West Africa, the Asante fight off the European powers for decades.

This novel also tells the story of Cecil Rhodes laying the basis for apartheid in South Africa; and the role of the new 500-round Maxim machine gun in military victories by Britain.

In Brazil, it tells of the tide of slave revolts that followed the end of slavery in Europe in 1834; the repression of the revolt that presaged ex-slaves being deported back to Africa; and the revolts that culminated in the final emancipation of slaves in 1888. The stories reflect the current zeitgeist in two ways: Telling the post-invasion story of the indigenous people and the millions of slaves in Brazil, South Africa and East Africa; and the Green message of the rich and powerful in Europe and its diaspora gobbling up the planet over four centuries and spitting out its pollution and carbon emissions.

The man-woman relationships of middle class mobile men and women – Black, white, Rastafari and Christian – are examined around issues of love, sex, fidelity, health, race and relocation. The action takes place across six Caribbean countries providing a galloping travelogue experience through the region where the motivations of various sectors of the society are explored. There is humour and music, and cricket and food!

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SUGAR’S SWEET ALLURE Khalil Rahman Ali It is 1843, and Mustafa, an eighteen year-old Muslim Indian labourer from a village near Kanpur in India, is forced to run away through the discovery of his forbidden love for Chandini, his Hindu childhood sweetheart. His dream was to find work, save his money and return to ask for his beloved’s hand.

This dream took him further afield into the promise of good work, pay and conditions as an indentured labourer on one of the sugar plantations thousands of miles away in the colony of British Guiana. His experiences on the Grand Trunk Road across Uttar Pradesh to Bengal, and on the treacherous sea voyage from Calcutta to Georgetown, tested his resolve to the limit. Then, when he and his companions were allocated to their sugar plantations, they had to endure and overcome more challenges.

Paperback, £11.99 / US $15.00 • eBook, £7.79 / US $9.00 UK customers SAVE £4.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

CROSSBONES and Other Stories Willi Chen A collection of short stories from Trinidad’s versatile and ebullient Willi Chen that features a wide variety of ordinary folk of the island. There are farmers, shopkeepers, thieves, drug-dealers, migrants from other islands and far-off places, people on the move, and people looking for a place and a life. It is a stark and elemental world: brute force versus human enterprise; cruelty pausing before sheer beauty; jumbie birds, snakes and howler monkeys. There are depths around the everyday surfaces: A disappointed man drifts back from the city to his rural setting; an honest small-islander is surprised by himself; a ‘foul’ thief, bitten by a dog, suffers rather than let an obeah woman examine the wound; a man turns away from thoughts of suicide and finds his wife dying instead.

These stories are filled with surprise, tension, fear, farce and comedy and reflect the magical realism and exuberance of the language of the Caribbean.

The characters are alive and memorable and record the very essence of real life in Trinidad and Tobago.

Paperback, £13.99 / US $21.00 • eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99

Paperback, £7.99 / US $12.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

65

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY THE INVISIBLE BECOME VISIBLE – BOOK TWO: Gold, Greed and Insurgency

KING OF THE CARNIVAL and Other Stories

Ben Lowe

This unique collection of short stories from the Caribbean, captures the violence, trickery, pathos and racial comedy of Trinidadian society.

The second of three novels about history’s forgotten or too little remembered people. It features the first great anti-slavery revolution in Haiti and the towering figure of Toussaint L’Ouverture. It is, above all, the story of the indigenous and enslaved people of Haiti and the indigenous people of Mexico through turbulent times. This book is part of a trilogy that casts a mirror on the invaders through the lives of various characters and their rich dialogue. It features peoples with a culture hewn over thousands of years until destructive invaders came, and it helps to explain how the profit-hungry and powerful ended up causing a climate emergency in the 21st century.

In Haiti, it follows the extraordinary history of the indigenous Taino people from the arrival of Columbus to their alliance with freed slaves to take on and defeat both the French and the British to achieve a revolution.

In Mexico, we experience the life of Aztecs in Tenochtitlan in its complexity, the Spanish invasion and the terrible destruction that followed. We follow two Aztec families, and through these we are able to direct a lens towards their history, culture and lifestyle over 250 years.

Willi Chen

Chen writes in a great sweep of energy and from a deeply humane perspective, investing his characters with the capacity for laughter, suffering and redemption.

“Brilliant and exuberant. A triumph of Caribbean prose from a writer of natural, abundant talent” David Dabydeen “In these wondrously wrought stories, Willi Chen evokes the richness, beauty and diversity of Trinidad life” Selwyn Cudjoe “In Willi Chen, Trinidad and Tobago has a short story writer of uniqueness and class. His work is bound to leave a stamp on our literature” Michael Anthony

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Lastly, we see the birth of the new Zulu nation during the early 1800s and more on the history of Mocambos in Brazil.

E-KIDZ: Mission to Cyberspace

Paperback, £13.99 / US $21.00 • eBook, £3.99 / US $4.99

Alan Springer

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In a puff of smoke and a flash like lightning, a genie appears from the computer and whisks the e-Kidz off into cyberspace to play games for ever and ever! It is their wish come true, but this is no ordinary game.

RHYTHM PLAYED IN A FIRE Gloria Times Aunt Hazel is a rock who opens her home to the extended members of her family after the devastating Castries fire of 1948. These include her sister, her niece and her husband and daughter, and a number of her much older female cousins. Tensions are never far from the surface as the family members are forced to accept their new living conditions amid destruction.

The people of Castries struggle to rebuild their lives among the charred remains of the capital. The task is challenging but they are optimistic as they come to terms with their afflicted lives in colonial St Lucia. However, the music of the island is ever present and provides a rhythmic thread throughout the story.

GLORIA TIMES emigrated to England from St Lucia in 1966 to train as a nurse.

This is her first book and is set around the time of the fire which destroyed much of St Lucia’s capital, Castries, in 1948. She experienced the aftermath of this disaster as a young child and much of the storyline is drawn from these experiences.

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DAUGHTER OF THE GREAT RIVER Khalil Rahman Ali This story is based on the struggles of Indigenous Peoples and is set in the fictional country of Kayana.

Onida is the eponymous ‘daughter of the great river’ who emerged more than five hundred years after her ancestors were brutally suppressed by invading Europeans and were forced to flee to the safety of the rainforests. Her tribe of Kayanese is made up of several Indigenous Peoples who prefer to live in the hinterland of the vast rainforests. She is the ‘chosen one’ to lead her peoples out of their challenging circumstances where the natural resources of gold and timber are being exploited by local and foreign interests.

The genie gives them a dangerous mission: clean up the internet. They head off on a thrilling surf-ride across the super-highway where they encounter dangerous cyber villains in the forms of a plague of bugs and cookies, evil pop-ups, chat-room predators, trojans and viruses.

The journey takes them to the centre of the world wide web to face the evil web-master in a final showdown.

Aimed at the 10 – 14 age-group, this book tackles the global concern of internet safety in an interesting and exciting way.

Paperback, £11.99 / US $20.00 • eBook, £7.79 / US $9.00 UK customers SAVE £4.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

HANSIB PUBLICATIONS Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

Paperback, £11.99 / US $18.00 • eBook, £5.99 / US $7.20

TEL/TEXT/WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956

UK customers SAVE £4.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY LONDON ROCKS Brenda Lee Browne Dante Brookes is a young man growing up in London in the late seventies and early eighties when sound systems ruled the party scene for young, Black British youths of Caribbean heritage. He navigates the loss of friends, police harassment and being a teenage father while forging a career as an MC. He stumbles into the acting profession and also becomes a writer. It is through these disparate experiences that he learns that the pen and mic are mightier than the sword.

BRENDA LEE BROWNE was born in London to Antiguan parents. She studied journalism and started her career in the Black media before moving to Antigua in the mid-1980s where she began writing and publishing short stories and poetry. In the mid-1990s, she returned to the UK and gained an MA in writing from Sheffield Hallam University. She returned to Antigua in 2003 and established the ‘Just Write’ creative writing workshops and has worked with government agencies, adults and inmates at HMP in Antigua. Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies in the USA, UK and Canada as well as online.

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DEAR INFIDEL Tamim Sadikali Two families reunite for a feast on Eid ul-Fitr – the day Muslims celebrate the end of the month of fasting – and boys who grew up together will meet again... as men. As the big day approaches, two of them go to the mosque, one leaves his girlfriend and another watches pornography. Nevertheless, they arrive intent on embracing the day. Old enmities are put aside as they take tentative steps towards each other.

This is a story about love, hate, longing and sexual dysfunction, all sifted through the fallout from the war on terror, and how we drift away from each other. We witness the realities of a post-9/11 world filter down, touch individual lives, combine with some internal tension, and finally spill over.

This contemporary novel also takes in universal themes such as the fear of getting old, failing as a breadwinner and failing one’s parents.

TAMIM SADIKALI was born in Kent. He read Mathematics at Warwick University before entering the world of software. By day he kids himself that he cares about computing, and by night he writes. This is his first novel.

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A TROUBLED DREAM Jacques Compton In the years after the Second World War, many West Indians came to live and work in Britain following the recruitment drives of such institutions as London Transport and the National Health Service. Many had also served in the British Armed Forces during the war and decided to make Britain their new home.

These new arrivals sought a life of prosperity in the ‘mother country’, but in reality they were often faced with a hostile and unwelcoming environment. Most learned to live with these obstacles and later sent for their families.

THE INVISIBLE BECOME VISIBLE – BOOK ONE: From Congo to Mocambo to Samba Ben Lowe This is the first of three novels on history’s forgotten or too little remembered people including, in particular, the indigenous people of Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, Haiti and Mexico. It is a history of communities living for thousands of years before invaders come and told from the perspective of the invaded and the enslaved.

It opens with the beginnings of the Portuguese empire from 1487, how people experienced Portuguese Armadas marauding up the east coast of Africa and their attacks on various ports and coastal stretches.

From South African oral history, it tells of how the Khoisan lived from 1487, and how they experienced and responded to unexpected European visitors.

In India, it recalls the tragic impact on locals as the Portuguese Armadas continue their negotiation by cannon fire, as well as the impact on people living on the East African coast.

In Brazil, Haiti and in Khoisan and Bantu areas in Africa, it reflects the people and their lifestyle, and their interaction with invading Europeans, and the emergence of Tupi and free-slave communities, which become pivotal to the development of Brazilian culture. In South Africa, it tells of Hangklip, a free slave community which emerges after the Dutch importation of enslaved Africans.

Much of the novel’s second half is part an allegory for the overwhelming desire of enslaved people for freedom.

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UNDER BASIL LEAVES: An Anthology of Poems Paulette A. Ramsay In this debut collection, Paulette Ramsay addresses the “unsanctioned” layers of experience that are often hidden behind social codes and cloaks of respectability.

Their layered wit is one of the most engaging features of these poems that range over diverse subjects such as childhood memories, politics, religion, women’s concerns, life and death, and the “man and woman story”. Ramsay’s ironic, often humorous vision, illuminates everyday relationships and experiences.

The range of voices add drama to much of the collection.

PAULETTE A. RAMSAY is an author of fiction and poetry. Her short stories and poems have been published in BIM, the Caribbean journal for the arts, and in the Caribbean Journal of Education.

Paperback, £7.99 / US $12.00 • eBook, £5.19 / US $5.99 UK customers SAVE £2.00 from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

IN PURSUIT OF BETTERMENT: Five Stories from the Indian Diaspora Khalil Rahman Ali

This is the story of a young married couple whose lives reflect the dilemmas faced by West Indians in British society, while at the same time having to address the conflicts between the older and younger generations.

In Pursuit of Betterment, is a unique collection of five stories of historical fiction that feature families from India, Guyana and the Caribbean, Mauritius, East Africa and South Africa. These families share a compelling desire and drive to achieve betterment through education, hard work and business against the backdrop of the histories of the countries from where they originate, or in which they reside. The stories will resonate with many readers within the Indian Diaspora as well as among those who had to leave their homelands to explore better life chances in other countries.

Paperback, £8.99 / US $18.00

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

67

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY THE HOOK OF DESIRE: Slavery and David Dabydeen’s ‘Turner’

CLOSER TO THE CHURCH: A Novel

Edited by Lynne Macedo

Angry with their religions and the wrongdoings of so many clerics, two young people decide to address the status quo. Set in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, Port-of-Spain, Nathan John and Miriam Suielman seek to attract many others to their cause and come up with the notion to stage and host a conference.

The resulting event, entitled ‘Conference of the UnGodly’, draws participants from across the globe.

David Dabydeen’s ‘Turner’ is a long poem of twentyfive sections that takes its inspiration from J.M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On (1840). Since the poem was first published in 1994, it has been subject to a significant level of critical debate and discussion.

The aim of this book is to bring together a selection of the many articles that have engaged with the poem, and to show how they explore its relationship to the events depicted in the painting. It contains articles that examine Dabydeen’s work from a number of different perspectives. Some are comparative, considering ‘Turner’ alongside other fictional responses to the Zong incident, whilst others focus on the work’s intertextuality or its exploration of the transformative nature of the sea. A recurrent theme is the inability of language to represent trauma, or to escape from the influence of past representations.

In the present political climate with its focus upon ‘Black Lives Matter’, it seems likely that the powerful legacy of the Zong case, and its many differing interpretations, will continue to resonate.

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THE DEMISE OF CANE FIELD PARADISE Georgia Brown Located at the eastern-most tip of Jamaica is the fictional village of Cane Field Paradise. Its verdant surroundings are dominated by a sugar estate, which provides the main source of income for the inhabitants.

For nine decades, the sugar factory dominated the skyline and the daily lives of the local residents, and it is where employment is guaranteed to any able-bodied person. Consequently, the villagers work hard, but they also play hard… especially on payday! Merriment and excitement ensue during these times of plenty but the thrill of the moment is punctuated by the unexpected closure of the sugar factory.

This is an intimate portrait and picturesque narrative of the reality of Jamaican village life. It shifts across the landscape of the overarching sugar estate, the backbreaking labour, crop-over celebrations, family life and the elation of payday.

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MEENACHI: Fourth Volume of New Poems Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen In this tight-woven, visceral, surreal and intellectual collection, Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen has continued her legacy of probing research into the experiences of immigrants from India to Trinidad. She delves into their customs, their religions and philosophy and pays veneration to ancestral pioneers.

She also writes passionately about her parents and her people in Trinidad where she was born.

Louis Lee Sing

In this cauldron of religious fervour, a spotlight is not only turned upon the abuses within the church but also the subject of religion as a whole. And it is within this arena that ‘sinners’ and ‘saints’ alike bare their souls.

For Nathan and Miriam, the conference is an illuminating spectacle. They had arrived as unknowns, but their overnight success has created a demand for them from organisations the world over.

LOUIS LEE SING served as Mayor of Trinidad and Tobago’s capital, Port-ofSpain, from 2010 to 2013. Throughout his adult life, he has been part of the media, beginning as a cub reporter in the weekly press. He boasts of having clawed his way up the ladder to become founder and owner of a leading broadcasting cluster within the nation’s radio market. Closer to the Church is his debut novel and his third published book.

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SINGLEHOLIC Katherine Bing Mixed race 30-year-old Sarah is dumped by her Muslim boyfriend and finds herself single once again.

Fed up with being alone, she gives herself one year to find a man. With the help of friends Georgina and Jacquie, ‘singleholic’ Sarah learns to alter her game with hilarious consequences.

Chibu, the Nigerian banker, is sexy but Arthur, the plum English Internet King, is charming. And will Sam, the tanned, trendy toy-boy, ever ring?

Join singleholic Sarah on a sassy, multicultural dating spree across London.

She goes from dancing through fountains at Somerset House to having a boogie in bars in Brixton.

Singleholic plays with race like never before and toys with all those questions you’ve always been afraid to ask. It is a hilarious Sex & The City adventure, in the spirit of Bridget Jones, which introduces multiculturalism to chick-lit.

“Wonderfully relatable and adorably funny! A revolutionary education on relationships, where you discover the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.” Zaraah Abrahams, Actor

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CULTURAL CONUNDRUMS: Poems on Inter-Connectedness Matahari V

Her poems are crisp and the sentences short-limned. Imagery, metaphor and factual information are combined in a meld of truth and perception. She is also a recipient of Trinidad and Tobago’s National Chaconia Gold Award.

The norms of the East and West sometimes bring about a clash of perceptions and create cultural conundrums. Much is lost in interpretation, and much is misunderstood; and walls emerge where a bridge could easily connect. Using a wide range of images from human experience and the natural world, the poet bares her soul with freshness and energy. This book is about seeing the world with different lenses so that ‘different’ is not ‘alien’.

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68

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY MOTHER COUNTRY: In the Wake of a Dream

RAISE UP THE LOW, BRING DOWN THE MIGHTY

Donald Hinds

Asher Hoyles

Summer 1947. Jamaican ex-serviceman Melbourne Welch stands on a street corner in Brixton, south London, facing a tirade of racial abuse from the British Union of Fascists. It is a shocking contrast to the treatment he received three years earlier when grateful Britons welcomed the ‘loyal colonials’ who had come to help defend the ‘Mother Country’ from Nazi tyranny. How things had changed.

For over 25 years, Asher has been composing poems and performing them in many different venues, including Glastonbury and Westminster Abbey. This book illustrates the variety of her style and themes and the CDs show that her passionate expression needs to be heard as well as read. She has run poetry workshops in schools, colleges and prisons, as well as teaching performance poetry.

Now out of uniform, and along with other non-white migrants, he and ‘his kind’ were seen as scroungers, cheap labour occupying scarce housing or salacious men on the hunt for women of easy virtue.

“Asher Hoyles brings poetry to you that is funny, moving, honest and true.

I hear years of tradition meeting the modern and the relevant ... Her poems make me feel educated, cultured, alive and loved.” Benjamin Zephaniah

“You helped us to win the war now come and help us rebuild the Mother Country.”

This sentiment of British Empire unity was inhaled like a breath of fresh air by many West Indians. They answered the call and arrived in Britain from the late 1940s on ships such as the iconic Empire Windrush. Former servicemen, like Melbourne Welch, chose to stay in the country they had helped defend after being demobbed. But for many, the dream of a better life and boundless opportunities was tainted with discrimination and hostility.

“We definitely need more voices like Asher’s exploring the black British experience, especially for women, as Linton Kwesi Johnson has done for young men.” Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze

While the characters may be fictional, their stories are not uncommon and are set against the backdrop of actual events.

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RIVER DANCER: New Poems

by Ian McDonald

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Ian McDonald

THE BALGOBIN SAGA Petamber Persaud Balgobin is an elusive, often overlooked character in Indian-Guyanese folklore. The mystery that surrounds him is curious given that his story has been in existence since the arrival of Indians into what was then British Guiana in 1838. Frequently portrayed as an unintelligent schoolboy, Balgobin confounds his educators by scraping through every challenge. To his classmates, he is often the hero of the day.

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MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS Since the early 1980s, Hansib Publications has been helping authors – and aspiring authors – from across the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora in the UK and North America bring their stories to life. We provide an outlet for the many voices that remain unheard and publish all genres of fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives.

With editorial and logistical support from an experienced team, plus a range of affordable options, getting your book published could not be easier. All manuscripts are considered, and the books we publish are available from a global network of booksellers.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you share your story with the world!

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

The extraordinary poems in this collection emerged as “blood emerges from a cut vein”, as the author describes the process of writing them. This is his sixth collection of poems in a literary career which has gradually gained strength and recognition over the years. His creativity, far from diminishing, in this book reaches a new level of interest and inspiration.

In this late flowering of new poems he has added a significant dimension to his work. The poems describe a full range of his experiences of love, sadness, family, ordinary people and their troubles and triumphs; the places he has known and loved and above all his wife’s garden and the great Essequibo river; the joys and bereavements and mysteries we all encounter, and the daily wonders of his long life.

A special dimension of the poems is the love he wishes to express for his wife, Mary. As he writes, “She has for long been a large part of my life. How does one convey plainly what means nearly everything? What would a red thing be without the red? Length and breadth measured without depth? I am sad that a time must come soon enough when I will die and leave her. That distils some of the poetry, even those poems not about her. I want her to know what I have felt, that does not die. The poetry gives shape to nothingness. I see her now, dancing by the river we love.”

This collection is a noteworthy contribution to Guyanese/Caribbean poetry.

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THE OPEN PRISON Angus Richmond Angela is a sensitive and disturbed child, growing up on the estate of her white guardian in British Guiana. She is slowly and painfully awakened to a society in turmoil, in which both Black and white are struggling to reassert their roles during the period of economic instability prior to the First World War. As the child of a loveless union between Black and white, the situation is even more problematic. Only after a desperate early marriage generates a series of tragic events, does Angela learn to understand the ultimate possibilities of her own displaced identity.

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Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

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Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY FIGHT: A Collection of Poems Sharnette Woosen-Henry We live in a world where we are constantly being judged by the colour of our skin... our gender... our faith... our social status. For many, these judgements remain unanswered or unchallenged and they turn the other cheek; their silence giving false authority to continued injustice.

Haile Selassie said that, “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

The poems within this debut collection aim to inspire the voice within and empower those who feel powerless and have remained silent.

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THE SWEETEST SOUND Yvonne Brissett Single, sexy, Sahai Martini is a natural born flirt and bona fide gold-digger. This scandalous chick is determined to enjoy a life of luxury at some wealthy man’s expense. As a television producer for a struggling urban entertainment station, she is under pressure to come up with an original idea to restore ratings, save the station and possibly her job.

Combining her gold-digger interests with her love of urban music, she creates a killer idea for a hot new reality dating show, but is her personal life quite as thrilling? Can she find Mr Right or will her outrageous ways get the better of her?

A sparkling, contemporary debut that takes us on an edgy journey of a young woman looking for love in all the wrong places!

“A clever read … full of bounce, rhythm and pace” Glen Yearwood, Black Entertainment Television Networks, (BET) UK “Gripping from the start… sassy and sensual” Naomi Jones, Nubian Readers’ Book Club

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STRIVING FOR EQUALITY, FREEDOM AND JUSTICE: Embracing Roots, Culture and Identity: A Collection of Poetry Zita Holbourne A collection of poetry, quotes and art by award winning and inspiring London-based poet, artist and activist Zita Holbourne. The book is a poetical journey through struggle and resistance, a story of strength, determination and love used to challenge discrimination and injustice, documenting important historical and current struggles from the Haitian Revolution to the Black Lives Matter Movement. This is combined with Zita’s personal journey as an activist, mother and artist.

Some of the poems in the book have won awards and others have been performed at awards ceremonies, some are dedicated to those who have inspired the author and others written in the hope of inspiring others.

A LANTERN IN THE WIND: A Fictional Memoir Ameena Gafoor “This rare insight into Muslim life in Guyana is rich in detail, and its realism is enhanced by the author’s equally rich imagination. Muslim existence is rarely described or represented in Caribbean literature, so Gafoor’s book fills a significant gap. Her tribute to her mother is painfully moving and beautiful, and her description of being an immigrant in London is, again, a relatively rare revelation of female experience.”

DAVID DABYDEEN, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick

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Books & eBooks published by Hansib Publications are also available worldwide from many booksellers including Amazon

AN AFRICAN JOURNEY Barbara Ellis The hero of the Akan people of West Africa and our hero, Anancy, takes us on a journey through time and history. He reveals the heroic achievements of his people, and guides us through the traumas that were inflicted on his motherland by the European Invaders, from the 15th century onwards.

Anancy takes us back to December 1492, when the three galleons commanded by Christopher Columbus ran aground on the rocky shoreline of Ayiti (Haiti).

The event was to have dire consequences for the inhabitants of the island – the Taino people – and later the African continent.

The enslavement and near extinction of the Taino people, through mining gold, silver and pearls for the Spanish invaders, created the demand for another source of free labour. Anancy is at the heart of the resistance to the enslavement of the local Taino people and the Africans in the ‘Recently Enslaved World’.

Anancy uses his dual personality – as a man and a spider – to resist and torment the slave masters, while inspiring and supporting his brothers and sisters to end their enslavement.

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AN AFRICAN JOURNEY: Book Two – From Emancipation 1838 to 1948, the Windrush and the ‘Mother Country’ Barbara Ellis This second volume of An African Journey traces former enslaved Africans after Emancipation in the British Caribbean. It depicts their struggle for political and economic liberation from the colonial power and outlines their journey throughout the region in search of work.

It also reflects upon the journeys made to Europe by thousands of men and women who enlisted to fight in the First and Second World Wars, and continues with the now symbolic first mass migration to Britain from the Caribbean on board the Empire Windrush in 1948.

This is a book not just for lovers of poetry but all those who want to make the world a better place and who stand for social justice and equality, combining the poetical with the political.

The book also traces the journey of Mrs Brown and her seven young children who set sail from Jamaica to Britain in 1964 to join their father in London. The family experiences hostility and discrimination, but their story is by no means unique and could be told by countless members of the Windrush Generation.

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70

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

Bookshelf • FICTION & POETRY THE BOY FROM WILLOW BEND

PARDNER MONEY STORIES

Joanne C. Hillhouse

Deanne Heron

Vere’s irrepressible spirit is an asset as he comes of age in Antigua. His is a hard-knocks existence marked by poverty and loss. The women in his life – his absent mother, long-suffering Tanty, rebellious June and first love Makeba – help shape him; so, too, his abrasive grandfather and others in his environment. In the end, though, it is a story about a boy trying to hold on to what’s real and precious to him, trying to find his way in the world and learning to be a man.

A collection of short stories that takes a whimsical look at life within an extended Black Jamaican family in Britain. Written in English with Jamaican patois dialogue, the stories capture the unique sense of humour of Black people in situations which wouldn’t ordinarily be considered humorous. Subjects as diverse as funerals and family holidays are featured and take a look at the interactions between various generations while highlighting the strong bonds of love and respect that bind them together.

This engaging tale speaks particularly to young readers, while sparking nostalgia in older Caribbean readers as well.

“The characters feel real and, best of all, they feel Caribbean, but the story could have held up in any culture.” Trinidad Guardian “… stands out as an example of self-redemption, self-motivation, and self-preservation.” She Caribbean, St Lucia

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MERCY CRIED NO Carol Sammy At the age of eighteen, Quintel Jones is faced with situations and challenges that demand a hasty step into maturity and manhood. In coping with a sick mother and impoverished circumstances, he is forced to grapple with realities that are often tough, while maintaining a heart for what is tender. Strong, determined and sometimes feeling battered, he stoically holds on to what are left of any dreams he harboured. He must fight for his mother’s life, ensure his own survival and find joy in the people helping to shape the outcome of his existence – an English journalist, a beautiful woman, an orphan boy and a curious benefactor are amongst those to whom he attributes his eventual breakthrough.

Set in Trinidad, the unglamorous yet compelling life of this young man blossoms as he battles with personal prejudices, poverty and love.

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HANSIB PUBLICATIONS Founded in London in 1970, Hansib Publications has played a crucial role in documenting the Caribbean experience and bringing Caribbean perspectives to a wider audience. It is renowned for its extensive catalogue of Caribbean fiction and non-fiction, spanning a diverse range of genres, including historical novels, biographies, poetry anthologies, political commentaries and social narratives. It has also made significant contributions to Caribbean scholarship by publishing insightful works on history, culture, politics and social issues.

Jamaican patois is a beautifully expressive language. It is funny, vibrant and emotional and is more than just words; it is body language, subtle nuance and intonation. It is a language of the soul, often more about what isn’t said than what is – a look, a raised eyebrow, a quick pout of the mouth or ‘kissing of the teeth’.

The name of the book is derived from the savings club referred to as “pardner”, “pardna” or “paadna”, which is a connecting thread within the lives of many Jamaicans, both past and present.

Paperback, £6.99 / US $11.00 • eBook, £4.54 / US $5.50 UK customers BUY NOW from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

PARDNER MONEY STORIES: Volume Two Deanne Heron This second volume of stories revisits Kelly and her eccentric extended Jamaican family living in the north of England. Here, we see the latest antics of Grandma Mala, Cousin Babsie and husband Ferdie, Lolly and Uncle Al, as they try to navigate through their ‘little piece of Jamaica’ in England.

“Readers love them because the fictional landscape she created with the colourful extended family of Jamaican immigrants is not simply realistic, it’s downright compelling ... they’re funny, they’re loud, they’re chaotic, they’re maddening; they’re us.” Sharon Leach, Jamaica Observer “Heron uses English for narrative and Jamaican patois for dialogue to paint authentic, larger-than-life characters with whom ex-pats and islanders back home can immediately identify.” Fay Wertheimer, The Guardian “... a tribute to the West Indian people whose everyday stories are rarely told ... Written in a chatty style, it is like listening to a good friend entertain you.” Tricia Wombell, Lime Magazine

Paperback, £6.99 / US $11.00 • eBook, £4.54 / US $5.50 UK customers BUY NOW from www.hansibpublications.com including FREE UK delivery

THE DOMINO MASTERS OF DEMERARA Khalil Rahman Ali

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com

It is the final and deciding game of dominoes between three rival teams from the sugar plantation villages of Anna Catherina, Leonora and Cornelia Ida, in Demerara. Michael “Histry Maan” Brown, the selfappointed coach to the Anna Catherina ACES, reverts to new tactics to pass sublime tips to his captain, Vishnu “Double Six” Prashad. The game is played out at a time when Guyana and its peoples were still emerging from a history of struggle through slavery, indentured labour, political independence, racial unrest, mass migration and economic downturn. The friends use every means available to continue to survive, and to build their lives in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. The game of dominoes provides them with the opportunity to demonstrate their competitiveness, their search for unity and their resolve to face up to their challenges.

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Today, Hansib Publications remains a significant force in the world of Caribbean publishing and continues to publish books that reflect the vibrant diversity of the Caribbean region and the global Caribbean diaspora. Its legacy of promoting Caribbean voices and perspectives has made it an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand and appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean.

Hansib Review | Issue No. 2

71

Authentic Reflections of the Caribbean Since 1988, Hansib Publications has been delighting readers with the luxurious books it has published within its Nations Series. These spectacular coffee-table books contain stunning photography and insightful commentary, and reflect the history, culture, scenic landscapes and lifestyles of the nations.

Respectful of the past, they equally present contemporary achievements along with plans and aspirations for the future and are highly regarded at home and abroad.

Featuring contributions by local photographers and writers, these lavishly-illustrated books provide authentic reflections of the English-speaking nations of the Caribbean.

Publishing since 1970

EMAIL: info@hansibpublications.com • TELEPHONE / TEXT / WHATSAPP: +44 (0)7930 603 956 WEBSITE: www.hansibpublications.com