Lasana Sekou in Oxford Poetry Book 

and Caribbean Encyclopedia

By Jacqueline Sample

GREAT BAY, St. Martin (February 21, 2006)—St. Martin poet/author Lasana M. Sekou started 2006 the way he ended 2005, featured in another important book on Caribbean literature and culture.

In January 2006, the double-volume Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature, the first of its kind, was published in the US and in the UK by Greenwood Press. “I am happy that the editor of the first encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature selected Lasana as one of the literary people to write about.

“To be in this book means that a St. Martin author is considered as one of the important writers of our region,” said Rhoda Arrindell, literature instructor at the University of St. Martin (USM).

The hardcover encyclopedia consists of a whopping 1,016 pages of text, photos, and maps. D.H. Figueredo —author, researcher, and director of the Library and Media Center at Bloomfield College—edited the Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature. The two volumes, size 7 x 10, are sold for $199.95.

The acclaimed Cuban scholar Emilio Jorge Rodríguez wrote Sekou’s profile. “Serious people from around the world are starting to take a closer look at the quality of writers, books, and a national literature coming out of St. Martin.

“This should inspire more writers and writings from the island in a strong way,” said Arrindell, who also heads the language division at USM. The two-volume tome includes more than 700 entries written by over 20 experts.

“In this month of celebrating history, we can say that Lasana is making some more history for his St. Martin people by being featured with the greats like St. John Perse, Derek Walcott, Nicolas Guillen, George Lamming, Leon Damas, Anton de Kom, the Naipaul Family, Pedro Mir, Maryse Conde, Kamau Brathwaite, Frantz Fanon, and Fidel Castro—all of whom are featured in the encyclopedia.”

In addition to the legion of authors, the publication profiles the region’s literary and socio-cultural movements, among other critical, interconnected aspects of its history, culture, and politics from, refreshingly, every language zone and the Caribbean Diaspora (prior to the early 1800s and up to the present).

The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature also reveals how the region’s literature and socio-cultural dynamics continue to impact not only Caribbean people but writers; literature, music, and art; and socio-cultural and political developments throughout the world.

When Oxford Speaks?

In December 2005, Sekou’s poem “Liberation Theology” (Mothernation, 1991) was published in The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. This is the newest anthology of Caribbean literature. The editors, Stewart Brown, a London-based poet and critic and Dr. Mark McWatt, an award-winning author and UWI professor of literature, cover 100 years of poetry that they consider to have been among the best and most telling of the last century of Caribbean reality and aesthetics.

To the editors, “The Caribbean has produced what is arguably the most vigorous and exciting body of poetry in the twentieth century, and this anthology will be the first to cover all its major languages.” The 440-page book further covers from the established “to less acclaimed poets of the 20s, 30s, and 40s, and exciting new voices from the 80s and 90s.”

The some 154 poets featured range from Derek Walcott, Aimé Césaire, to Jesus Cos Causse and Olive Senior, to Chiqui Vicioso and Jacques Roumain, to Jennifer Rahim, Kendel Hippolyte, Julia de Burgos, the Dawes family, and Nydia Ecury, Mutabaruka, Rooplal Monar, and Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Fabian Badejo, an impatient advocate for the Caribbean to become the primary publishing center for its own literature, and who broke the news here about the book on the Culture Time radio program last December, said that, “Oxford is still a citadel of Caribbean literary publishing.

“When Oxford University Press publishes a selection of Caribbean poets it is an announcement to the world about who’s who in a region that has produced an unprecedented amount of winners of the Nobel prize in literature given both its small geographic and population size.”

According to the London Guardian newspaper, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse is a “wonderful beginner’s guide to the amazing riches of Caribbean poetry” in which “The editors provide an excellent, comprehensive introduction.”

There Is More

If the above literary news was not enough about recent highlights in the progress of St. Martin writing, the US-based NewPages.com, a key portal of independent and university presses, has just listed Sekou’s newest book, 37 Poems, as one of its current “New & Noteworthy Books.”

Here are two more news bytes to “celebrate” St. Martin’s literature. Drisana Debbie Jack, photograph and all, and her new book Skin, appeared in The New York Amsterdam News of February 9, alongside her stellar seniors Austin Clarke (Barbados/Canada) and Frank Martinus (Curacao) – all three authors fresh from Winternachten 2006 in The Hague. Secondly, the just-released tourism magazine St. Maarten/St. Martin Experience 2006 is also attempting to tap into and share with visitors what is authentic St. Martin culture with a short “wordsmiths” write-up, highlighting the poem “Salt pond” by Esther Gumbs (Tales From the Great Salt Pond, 1996).

The Amsterdam News article by media specialist Misani and the Gumbs-Bradshaw poem in Experience 2006 were facilitated through House of Nehesi’s promotions of St. Martin’s artists and writers.

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Encyclopedia of Caribbean Literature [Two Volumes] By D. H. Figueredo

The Caribbean is a part of the world with diverse cultures and a long and fascinating literary tradition. The people of this region have endured through civil strife, poverty, natural disasters, and military conflicts; and their literature reflects their despair and dreams. Accessible to students and general readers, this encyclopedia overviews the lives and works of Caribbean authors.

Because Caribbean literature is so much a reflection of regional concerns, the encyclopedia gives special attention to the political, cultural, and historical contexts in which Caribbean authors have lived and worked. To help with this massive endeavor, scholar and librarian Danilo H. Figueredo has assembled an impressive team of advisors and authors. Included in the encyclopedia are more than 700 alphabetically arranged entries written by more than 20 expert contributors. These entries cover authors, works, genres, historical and cultural figures, themes, and various special topics.

Among the entries are pieces on:

Anancy Stories /  Julia Alvarez /  Reinaldo Arenas / Edward Kamau Brathwaite / Fidel Castro / Joseph Sickman Corsen / Costumbrismo / Dominican Republic, History of the Literature / Exile Literature / Feminism in Caribbean Literature /  Frantz Fanon /  A House for Mr. Biswas / Immigrant Literature / Edna Manley / Samuel Selvon / Spiralist Movement / Ruben Suro / Surrealism / Nathaniel Weekes / And many more.

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Frank Martinus Arion (pseudonym of Frank Efraim Martinus) was born in 1936 in Curacao. In 1955 he moved to the Netherlands where he studied at, and subsequently worked for, the Institute for Dutch Studies. He returned to Curacao in 1981 where he is the director of the Language Bureau, which promotes the use and recognition of Papiamento, a pidgin language of the Antilles.

For Arion the primary function of literature is to provide readers with a critical knowledge of reality. At the same time Arion wants to 'captivate his readers to the extent of burning their cooking on the stove' as he writes gripping, finely constructed political thrillers. 

The base for his novel, Dubbelspel (Double Play), is the colonial relationship between the Netherlands and the Antilles. The six main characters represent the lower classes of the Antillian population, with a pair of idealistic lovers finally devoting themselves to the social and political upliftment of their island Curacao, reflecting the author's vision of the future. 

The same idealism appears in De laatse vrijheid where the main character defies death through sheer willpower. "In this book the author has created a world in which one can momentarily forget the real world. Right from the start to the very end Arion keeps the reader in suspense" . Dubbelspel was awarded the Lucy B. and C.W. van der Hoogt Prize in 1974 and it has been translated into German, Danish and English .

posted 1 March 2006

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update 3 August 2008