The Publishing House is the fulfilment of a pledge made by President Jagdeo during the Carifesta X celebrations after an appeal for such a facility by Professor David Dabydeen. Following this appeal, the President allocated US$100,000 annually towards the establishment of the facility.
While it is intended that there will be a printery here at some stage, the classics were printed in the UK.
The books that have been republished are: The Discoverie of Guiana by Sir Walter Ralegh, The First Crossing by Theophilus Richmond, The Coolie, his rights and wrongs by John Edward-Jenkins, The Shadow Bride by Roy Heath, The Asylum Journal (2 volumes) by Robert Grieve, Selected Poems by Egbert Martin, The Chinese in British Guiana by Sir Cecil Clementi, Martin Carter’s Selected Poems/ Poesías Ecogidas , N.E. Cameron’s anthology of Guianese Poetry,1831-1931 and Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana by Charles Barrington Brown.
Editor of the Publishing House, Professor Dabydeen said that after being set up in May last year, the Publishing House was able to reproduce 11 volumes within 5 months. Pointing out that this was no easy task, Dabydeen said that the project benefitted significantly from the help of several persons who were committed to the project including several government officials. He saluted Dr Ian McDonald who he credited with coming up with the idea for the facility and President Jagdeo for funding it. Dabydeen said that the works republished were all critical parts of the country’s literary heritage and that the scholarly insights added to each work served to put them in context. Dabydeen disclosed that work is currently ongoing to produce a further 13-14 works within the next year.
- Some of the republished works
In the feature address, President Jagdeo said he was pleased with the success of the project so far and pledged the continued support of the administration. “We will support the project to the end”, the Head of State said. He noted that it was an important development for the youths of the country since it could serve to forge a greater sense of identity.
He stressed that the leaders of the PPP/C were deeply concerned with preserving the arts in Guyana and noted that this was a deep interest of former President Janet Jagan. The President pointed out that when the PPP/C first came into power there were challenges in funding the arts directly from the treasury but said that Mrs. Jagan found ingenious ways to help fund the arts. He said now that the country is now self-financing it has now been able to dedicate more resources to this area.
The Head of State pointed out that in the party’s 2006 manifesto it has identified strong support for the arts and he said since then, the government has budgeted $100 million annually to the arts- apart from the funds allocated to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.
- Browsing through some of the books
Jagdeo said that the revival of the arts was necessary to facilitate the complete rejuvenation of the society. Further, Jagdeo said that he was keen on promoting a new form of uniquely Caribbean and Guyanese content that could be exploited by the new technology available today. The President said he had an interesting conversation with the “very intelligent” soca-singing sensation Machel Montano who shared similar sentiments. He said that if the artistes could come with attractive and unique content it could become a huge generator of income.
He said that he had recently spoken with officials from Kross Kolor Recording and had engaged them about the making of short movies. He said that they have since sent 10 scripts to him and he has promised to give them grants to produce these short movies.
Culture Minister Dr Frank Anthony said that the Publishing House will serve to preserve important parts of the country’s legacy, noting that Guyana Classic Series consisted of 36 seminal works which were specially identified because of their literary significance to the country. Apart from this, the Minister said that the facility will serve to expand creativity in the country and the region.
He pointed out that the services of the press did not only extend to Guyanese but that it also extended to the rest of the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, consulting editor of the Publishing House, Dr McDonald lauded the efforts taken to preserve the country’s rich literary heritage. He urged the Culture Minister and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh to allocate enough money in each year’s budget to fund the publishing of at least 15 titles annually.
McDonald said that the republishing of the Poetry Anthology by Norman Cameron had now encouraged him to compile a new anthology of Guyanese poetry, building on the works of Cameron and A. J Seymour.
Also addressing the gathering last evening was Curator of Castellani House Elfrieda Bissember who noted that it was extremely “exciting” that this work had come to fruition and that it could only serve to preserve important parts of Guyanese narrative.
Copies of these books were last evening handed over to the National Library as well as the University of Guyana Library. Plans are also onboard to have copies of these works donated to all libraries in secondary schools.
