Dear Editor,
I was delighted to read Mr Al Creighton’s reply (‘The rules which apply to international literary awards also apply to the Guyana Prize for Literature’ SN, April 30) to my letter of April 29 arguing that former judges of the Guyana Prize for Literature should not be allowed to submit entries.
I would like to ask Mr Creighton where in the Guyana Prize for Literature brochure can I find the rules I had quoted from the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, stating that former judges and members of the management committee are not allowed to submit entries for the Guyana Prize for Literature? I will answer the question for him – nowhere.
Mr Creighton goes on to say that Drs Ian McDonald, David Dabydeen, Dennis Craig, etc, had stepped down from the management committee before their entries were submitted. Doesn’t the fact remain that they were fully aware of the literary criteria the contest was being judged by, and this helped them to write books to suit the judges’ criteria and thus emerge as winners? Doesn’t the fact that they are known to the other judges not give them an advantage over other entrants? Only a few Guyanese writers living and working in Guyana have won the prize. The awards are going to Guyanese who have been living over 30-40 years overseas.
Has the Guyana Prize for Literature helped emerging writers living and writing in Guyana? The answer is no.Writers living and writing in Guyana don’t have a publishing house here to help them get their works published.
That is the reason the overseas-based Guyanese writers are winning the prize all the time because their books are properly edited and published by international publishers, and they have already won several international literary awards abroad. So how can our local writers compete with these fully established and recognized writers?
The last Guyana Prize award was held in 2006, Mr Creighton compared the Guyana Prize to international literary awards abroad. Why was the Guyana Prize not held in 2008 since it’s held every two years? Very soon it would be four years, so how can Mr Creighton compare this dis-organised Guyana Prize to the Booker Prize, the Cohen Award, the IMPAC Dublin literary award, etc?
Some entrants who have won a prize at an international award will sometimes be asked to submit another entry only after five years have elapsed. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will never win that award again. Some awards, like the international Poetry Society contest will ask for anonymous entries, meaning the title alone will be on the entry and not the entrant’s name. The entrant will be asked to fill out an entry form with his name, address, email, phone number etc, separately, and send it to the competition organizer with his entry. Only when the winner is declared then the competition organiser will reveal the name of the entrant who won.
Why can’t we have these same rules for the Guyana Prize? David Dabydeen, Paloma Mohamed, Mark McWatt, Fred D’Aguiar, Ian McDonald, etc, have won the prize more than once.Why not ask them to step down from entering again for the prize, otherwise they will be winning the prize again until the end of time.
One of my major concerns is the quality of writing that has won the Guyana Prize, I have read all these books with a great deal of interest. Some of them like Essequibo, Martin Carter’s Selected Poems are great poetry that deserved the prize. Then I read some really vulgar and immoral works that are loaded with ‘cuss words,’ sexual overtures and hardcore material that’s mind boggling to the real academic. My question is this: how can we teach such books as literature to our young students in schools and university?
What literary criteria were used to give these immoral books a prize? MrTerrence Roberts replied to me by quoting some big names such as DH Lawrence, Joyce, Faulkner, etc. I wish to ask how I can teach literature to a child at high school containing ‘cuss’ words and hardcore sex passages in vulgar prose? What is the purpose of literature if it cannot transform the heart and soul of its reader. Just to refresh his memory DH Lawrence’s books were banned in England and the writer eloped with his tutor’s wife lived an adulterous life dying before the age of 50.
Mr Roberts felt I am attacking these books from a religious standpoint. No I am not, since I do believe a writer can use romantic language and write about sex but can still use decent language to educate his readers, both young and old. I use lots of romantic language in my love poems, but very beautiful words to inspire my readers. A writer never writes for himself or to inflect his profane ignorance upon a nation and the world; he writes because he has an indispensable desire in his heart to convey a message to the world when he is gone. Our Guyanese writers must read the classics like Homer, Dante,Virgil, Lucan, Tagore, Gibran, Shakespeare, TS Eliot, etc, if they want their writings to have eternal value. Winning literary awards doesn’t mean that one is a greater writer than others; what makes a writer great is when his books become classics when he is gone from this world. My desire is not to criticize and condemn the Guyana Prize but to raise the standard of the prize and its administration. I write this letter as a published writer both locally and internationally, as an academic, as a teacher of English and Literature and as a Reverend to educate and admonish our nation and the Guyana Prize Committee. My prayers are with you all. I would be delighted to be a judge for this prize in the future.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil