Today marks the 100th birth anniversary of A J Seymour, Guyana’s greatest man of letters. I make that judgement because of the extraordinary range of his literary interests and accomplishments. Martin Carter is the greatest poet Guyana has produced. There are other Guyanese of literary genius – I think, for example, of the novelists Edgar Mittelholzer, Wilson Harris and Roy Heath and of Denis Williams that distinguished artist, anthropologist and writer, also of Norman Cameron who was celebrated as teacher, playwright, editor and historian and of Mahadai Das, our greatest woman poet. And there are others who deserve mention. But in terms of work of great value in a prodigious number of fields Arthur James Seymour (AJS) seems to me to surpass anyone else.
In a tribute in Kyk-Over-Al to mark his 75th birthday I wrote the following:
“His overall contribution to the cultural tradition of Guyana and the Caribbean is truly astonishing… This amazing man’s work contains poems, historical publications, reviews, broadcasts, essays, addresses, entries in anthologies, forewords, lectures, talks, pamphlets, memoirs, sermons, eulogies, magazine work,