The Guyana Prize for Literature Literary Festival began on February 29th and ended on March 3rd. There were workshops, storytelling, panel discussions, book launches, masterclasses, an exhibition of Guyanese literature, the awards ceremony, poetry slam and the winning Guyana Prize for Literature play 2002 ‘Father of the Man’ written by Professor Paloma Mohamed Martin was staged to end the festival.
I attended the awards ceremony on Friday March 1st. It was set to begin at 7pm. Knowing our culture of unpunctuality I decided that I would arrive about 45 minutes late. I thought that it would have started by then. I recalled that last year’s event started late and there was a blackout we had to sit through because there was no generator. The Guyana Power and Light never fails to disappoint us. The decades of incompetence, traumatises and angers us but most of us have learned to live with it. With foreigners in the midst during the prestigious Guyana Prize for Literature awards ceremony 2023, instead of being embarrassed that there was no generator to save us from sitting in darkness, one might have simply concluded that blackout is a part of our culture and those who visit us must be able to have the authentic Guyanese experience.