The annual Republic of Guyana Distinguished Lecture Series, established in 2011, continued last week with a lecture that provided, as has been the intention, an opportunity for intellectual engagement with concepts that define Guyana as a nation as a part of the celebration of Mashramani and the anniversary of Republicanism. In the 2015 Lecture, novelist Oonya Kempadoo reflected on language as a medium for literature, in particular, the use of the Creole in the Caribbean with implications for the oral culture, the storytelling traditions and folk music.
Mashramani is primarily known as a festival of revelry, music and culture, overwhelmingly led by the gaiety and Bacchanalian abandon in the popular culture. But it was designed in 1970 as a celebration of the nation’s Republican status with implications that definitively transcend the music and carnival. The Republic of Guyana Lecture Series