Dear Editor,
I thank John Mair for acknowledging the placement of my collection of doggerel on this year’s Guyana Prize, Best Book of Fiction shortlist. I should probably inform Mr Mair that I am also not too shabby in the investigative journalism department and my uncovering of the mismanagement of the Caribbean Press is far from over. Drs Anthony and Dabydeen are yet to publicly account for the number of books said to have been printed, where precisely these books are to be found, and who was paid what for their production, amongst other things.
Additionally, we are still waiting on the Guyanese short fiction and poetry collections of work from local authors said to be “at the printers” since January of this year, and the Board that the Minister was supposedly hungering for months ago is yet to be in place. In closing, I suppose I should be grateful that the ministry did not enter the accounts and policy documents of the Caribbean Press in the fiction category of this year’s Prize because then I would have absolutely no chance of winning.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
