President Bharrat Jagdeo, Minister of Culture, Dr Frank Anthony, the Government of Guyana and Professor David Dabydeen are to be heartily congratulated on the establishment of the Caribbean Publishing House and the recent launching of the Guyana Classics Series. As previously reported, the Publishing House is the fulfilment of a pledge made by President Jagdeo during Carifesta X in August 2008, after an appeal for such a facility by Prof Dabydeen. The Government of Guyana has pledged US$100,000 annually for the Publishing House and while one of the original ideals of setting up a high-quality printery in Guyana has not yet been realised, this remains a major and worthwhile objective of the project.

The 11 books by Guyanese authors or about Guyana that have been republished in the first phase of the initiative 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 in two 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, NE Cameron’s Anthology of Guianese Poetry,1831-1931 and Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana by  Charles Barrington Brown. A cursory perusal of these titles, even to the uninitiated, would suggest that they present a rich tapestry of Guyanese history, literature and culture from early colonial times to the recent 20th century.

The Guyana Classics Series itself should be completed over the next two years with the republication of some 25 more seminal works deemed critical to the preservation of our country’s rich literary heritage. We can only lick our lips now in anticipation of the rediscovery of long-lost or out-of-print texts. Among other things, as President Jagdeo has quite perceptively stated, this project will serve to forge a greater sense of national identity.

Beyond the immediate aim of completing the Guyana Classic Series, there is the potentially more rewarding goal of providing opportunities for local writers, particularly young ones, and eventually Caribbean writers, to publish their work. At present, apart from self-published books, which have been greatly facilitated by the advent of desktop publishing and user-friendly computer technology, only the Peepal Tree Press in the UK, set up by the admirably dedicated Jeremy Poynting, really provides a reliable, professional outlet for contemporary Guyanese literary talent. In addition, in 2009, Peepal launched the Caribbean Modern Classics Series, which restores to print essential books from the 1950s and 60s, including works by Jan Carew, Wilson Harris, Edgar Mittelholzer and Denis Williams. The vistas and possibilities that a local publishing house and printing press would open up for creative writing in Guyana and the Caribbean are therefore enormous.

The President has stressed his administration’s concern with preserving the arts in Guyana and has made particular reference to the late President Janet Jagan’s interest in this respect. Of course, her efforts to have the national art collection housed in Castellani House immediately come to mind, as a tangible and visible manifestation of a commendable attempt to preserve at least one aspect of our cultural patrimony. President Jagdeo’s other utterances about supporting and reviving the arts, as well as his stated interest in the possibilities of new technologies in the service of artistic expression must also be welcomed.

But let us not forget that culture is more than literature, music, dance, architecture and the visual arts. Indeed, the celebration of our various religious and national festivals, our unique, multi-faceted folklore, our sumptuous cuisine bringing together the flavours of four continents, the remembrance of things past, our doom-defying joie-de-vivre, all are strong reminders of the importance of ancestral links, popular influences and free expression in the cultural syncretism or cultural creolization that we loosely call Guyanese culture. In this context, the exploration of our folklore and myths by the late, lamented Wordsworth McAndrew, the wonderful ‘Nostalgias’ of Godfrey Chin, the insightful musings of Dave Martins and the labour of love represented by Prof Vibert Cambridge’s Profiles of Guyanese Artistes, to name but a few outstanding examples, are all important contributions to keeping our culture alive and stimulating our creative impulses, at home and abroad.

Following their example and taking heart from the Guyana Classics, we must guard against disintegration. We need to ensure that economic woes, emigration, neglect or ignorance do not erode all that is contained in our collective consciousness. And we need to find multiple ways to record for ourselves and for posterity all that we remember, all that we know, all that we are, even if many of us may not be able to do so artistically.

The BBC World Service has a wonderful series called ‘Witness’ in which events of the past, usually dramatic, often painful, mostly poignant, are brought to life through interviews with participants, literally witnesses to history. It is perhaps worthy of emulation.

As Dave Martins said in a speech entitled ‘Being Guyanese,’ in Orlando, Florida, in February 2008, “Wherever we wander, our Guyanese culture sustains us and fortifies us. It comforts us… we must be proud of our beginnings, too, and be proud of the culture that produced us. At the core, wherever we are, it is the essence of who we are.”

On the death of Wordsworth McAndrew in April 2008, President Jagdeo himself noted, “Through his work on oral traditions, literature, music and on radio, he has grounded us in our rich and diverse cultural history.” We need to ensure that this legacy is not forgotten and oral history is a relatively easy and direct way to do so, especially with the technology available today. For if we do not keep our culture alive, we forget who we are.