Among the important cultural highlights of 2024 will be the Guyana Prize Literary Festival which is scheduled to take place between Thursday, February 29 and Sunday, March 3. This event was brought back into existence along with the Guyana Prize itself in and given new life in 2023. It is very important for several reasons, promises to be varied and interesting, and aims to be a major annual fixture on the national and regional literary calendar.
Very significantly, the Festival, which previously had no fixed date, was brought in to be a part of the celebrations of Mashramani and the national Republic commemorations. Central to this is the award of the Prize itself, regarded as a major national honour, now to be presented as one of the nation’s Republic distinctions. The National Poetry Slam, which also had no fixed date, was promoted to be part of the festival, and promises to generate some excitement on the Saturday night. Dramatic performance has been introduced, and one of the plays that have won the Guyana Prize for Drama will be presented at the NCC.
This is a 4-day festival decorated, fortified and enlivened with many features that offer education, training, intellectual thought, spectacle and entertainment. It is a programme of literature, theatre, oral traditions, workshops, exhibitions and performance with potential excitement for a range of persons and interests. It brings together a number of important events each with an identity, a place and a history of its own, added to new events created for the festival as well as others which have been a part of the Guyana Prize.
There are major components, supported by smaller activities held at Castellani House and the National Cultural Centre (NCC). Foremost among the major events is the Awards Ceremony for the Guyana Prize at the NCC on Friday, March 1, at 7.00 pm. The President of the Republic will be asked to hand out the awards to the winners of the Prize in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Non-Fiction, and the Youth Awards.
Literature takes centre stage, and a major focus is the Guyana Prize Exhibition of Guyanese Literature and Writers mounted by the University of Guyana. Continuing to feature literature, will be Guyana’s most distinguished memorial lecture series, The Edgar Mittelholzer Memorial lecture to be delivered by Prof Alison Donnell on Sunday afternoon at Castellani House. Another distinguished lecture series to be delivered is the Martin Carter Memorial Lecture slated for Saturday afternoon.
Additionally, all the winners of the Guyana Prize 2023 will give a public reading of selections of their work, so all can hear samples of the best work. Then, to take that even higher, some of the prominent international writers will present and read from their works. These include four prize-winning writers. Foremost world writer David Dabydeen will present and read from his new novel set in China, Sweet Li Jie; Trinidadian fiction writer Celeste Mohamed will read from her work and launch a new book; Commonwealth Writers Prize winner Nigerian Funso Aiyejina will read from his work; and so will BOCAS prize winner Richard Georges from the British Virgin Islands.
Extending the celebration of varied, entertaining writing will be a number of Guyanese writers of poetry, fiction and drama, including examples of the new, rising writers on these shores. At the same time, visiting Guyana for this festival will be other leading academics and critics, including Denise de Caires Narain Gurnah, Lisa Outar and Evelyn O’Callaghan, who will present lectures and discussions on a range of literature including West Indian and other women writers in different sessions.
Entertainment will be a premium since, added to the National Poetry Slam and the dramatic play (Paloma Mohamed’s Guyana Prize Winner Father of the Man), will be extended sessions of story telling performed by the leading tellers in the country, such as National Drama Company members Sonia Yarde and Keon Heywood, as well as Michael Khan of UG. Some of these story sessions are tailored for children and should attract large numbers of school children who will also be invited to attend creative writing workshops within the festival.
This carnival of literary and performance culture will find time for instruction – to hold sessions geared to improving the quality of creative writing in Guyana. Apart from the workshops for the youth conducted by Vanda Radzik, Imam Baksh and Camanie Khedaroo, there will be Masterclasses in Creative Non-Fiction writing conducted by Prof Edward Greene, Outar and Dabydeen; masterclass in Drama led by Rawle Gibbons and Eugene Williams; and a masterclass in fiction writing conducted by Prof Aiyejina and Mohammed.
A very special feature will be an unusual one. There will be a session devoted to the works of one of the Caribbean’s most outstanding literary critics, the Guyanese Gordon Rohlehr, whose memory is to be honoured by a focus on his vast store of publications. This will be led by Gibbons, who will promote the works – a vast critical and literary heritage left by Rohlehr in the session which is aimed at selling copies of those books. So anyone interested in owning copies can come prepared to buy them. Among those treasures is the extraordinary body of work done on the calypso.
The programme, called the “Lit Fest”, originated in 2014 when a few literary features were marshalled and re-organised to take place along with and at the same time as the Awards Presentation Ceremony of the Guyana Prize. Not only did it have the award of the Prize as its focus, but it took advantage of the visit to Guyana of several of the leading international literary critics and writers assembled in the country at the same time. The same is a significant factor in the Lit Fest this year. Another advantage was to give some more attention and higher promotion to the Prize. This year it continues to add interest and draw attention to the Prize.
These activities were repeated in 2016, the last time the Prize was offered before its removal. Leading literary personalities taking part in 2014 and 2016 included Eddie Baugh, Prof Jane Bryce, Stewart Brown, Prof Mark McWatt, Ameena Gafoor and Barbara Jenkins.
Mention has already been made of some of the prominent and distinguished participants expected to visit Guyana for Lit Fest 2024. Most of them are members of the Jury for the Guyana Prize 2023 – namely, the Fiction Jury : Prof Aiyejina (chairman), Celeste Mohamed, Denise de Caires Narain Gurnah; for Poetry: Prof O’Callaghan (Chairman), Prof Donnell, Richard Georges; Drama: Rawle Gibbons, Eugene Williams, Gem Madhoo; Non-Fiction Jury: Prof Greene (Chairman), Prof Dabydeen, Lisa Outar; and for the Youth Awards: Vanda Radzik (Chairman), Camanie Khedaroo, Imam Baksh.
