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The 2018 IndyList

THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List is now eight years old!

The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.

The list, which first appeared in 2011, is part of the Editors' ongoing "Mapping Our Literature" mission, which promotes awareness of and celebrates Barbadian books and their authors. Each year, we recommend new, classic, and noteworthy titles in fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and children’s literature.

And we encourage you to discover and add your own!

Barbadian Literature, Barbados' Independence, Caribbean Literature

Mia Mottley, Barbados' General Election May 24, 2018.

Editorial: After Elections, Barbadians Must Learn to Move Forward

BARBADIANS MAY HAVE FACED one of their toughest general elections May 24 since becoming independent. It may even have been as tough as the one faced by their American neighbours far to the north in 2016.

The choice felt familiarly limited: between a man more concerned with how he would be viewed by history on the one hand and, on the next, a woman long in the political trenches possibly attempting to fulfill her own destiny.

The real decision for Barbadians on Election Day was the stewardship of their country for the next five years. It was an uneasy one.

Anthony Kellman's Tracing JaJa Wins 2018 Casa de las Americas Prize

You can also read more about Kellman's Tracing JaJa and 2018's Casa de las Américas Prize honourable mentions for Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba by Sharon Milagro Marshall and Canouan Suite & Other Pieces by Philip Nanton here.

Last updated May 5, 2018.

Anthony Kellman, Barbados, Becka, Casa de las Americas, Historical Fiction, King Jubo Jubogha of Opobo, Sharon Milagro Marshall, Philip Nanton, Novel, Peepal Tree Press

THE 2017 JUDGES for the 20th Annual Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award were DeCarla Applewhaite, Professor Jane Bryce, Ayesha Gibson-Gill, Dana Gilkes, Christine Matthews, Professor Mark McWatt, Esther Phillips, Chairman Antonio “Boo” Rudder, and Andy Taitt. The following is what they had to say about this year’s awardees:

Honourable Mention

Heather Barker, Shakirah Bourne, Common Entrance, Eleven Plus, Frank Collymore Literary Award, Dana Gilkes, Ayesha Gibson-Gill, Amanda Haynes, Dr Nicole Hunte, Karen Lord, Marck McWatt, Esther Phillips, Yvonne Weekes

COLLECTED POEMS 1975-2015 by John Robert Lee represents one man’s spiritual journey meandering through thorny labyrinths of faith, “from inner city provinces to southern islands of Amerika” (“Challenger”). This journey began long before 1975: when a young Lee witnessed his father, Alleyne, relishing a dessert of fresh ripe mangoes on a Sunday afternoon and began to contemplate seriously his romance with the written word.

Caribbean Literature, Elmer Gantry, John Robert Lee, Sinclair Lewis, poetry, Religion, St Lucia, Derek Walcott

Admission by the editors of Shouts from the Outfield: The ArtsEtc Cricket Anthology—that they are “two cricket-know nothings”—might tempt some people not to buy and/or read their book. But either option would be a mistake. For although Linda Deane and Robert Sandiford grew up outside the West Indies, in Britain and Canada, respectively, they had Barbadian (Bajan) parents, through whom, somehow, they seem to have imbibed an abiding love of West Indian cricket.

Adonijah, Australia, Bajan, Barbados, Hilary Beckles, Austin Clarke, Learie Constantine, Tony Cozier, Cricket, Linda M. Deane, Paul Keens Douglas, England, George Headley, CLR James, Kensington Oval, Clive Lloyd, Keith Sandiford, Garfield Sobers, Philip Spooner, Ikael Tafari, Test Match, West Indies, Frank Worrell

A Review of In Time of Need

It is so captivating when a writer lifts off the stereotypical veneer of a tourist-dependent society as “paradise” and excavates the real lived experiences of the people. Shakirah Bourne does just that in her collection of short stories, In Time of Need. For those who reside in Barbados or those who have a good knowledge of Barbadian heritage, the opening words to the national anthem immediately come to mind when they hear Bourne’s title. “In plenty and in time of need when this fair land was young” is the beginning of an anthem that describes the struggle of a nation.

Barbadian Literature, Barbados, Shakirah Bourne, YA

A Review of Brown Girl, Brownstones

Reading Paule Marshall's novel Brown Girl, Brownstones threw up a number of exciting firsts for me. It was the first time I was reading a work by an esteemed author with her roots firmly planted in Barbados. And it was the first book I’d read for the first-ever book club I'd attended.

American-Barbadian Literature, Brown Girl Brownstones, Fiction, Paule Marshall, New York, Novel