IT WAS three times a charm for Allison Cadogan.
On January 9, the Barbadian writer won the 2015 Frank Collymore Literary Award for her novel manuscript The Economist.
She had previously been shortlisted in 2010, earning Joint 2nd Prize with Glenville Lovell (there was no top winner that year) and in 2012, when another manuscript of hers won the Prime Minister's Award.
This time, she alone held the coveted Colly—Barbados' most lucrative literary prize.
LISTEN OUT for a new and stimulating Barbadian radio show this January.
What's That You're Reading? will be airing on Q100.7 on Wednesdays at 1:30pm and repeated on Saturdays at 5:30pm.
Organized by Writers Ink Inc., with author and broadcaster Philip Nanton as its main host and members of Writers Ink as guest hosts, the show's main objective is to highlight Barbadian and other Caribbean writers as well as encourage more reading among the wider public.
KWAME SLUSHER, a young freelance journalist currently residing in Australia, is the winner of The Carolle Bourne Award for Literary Innovation for 2015.
Slusher took the award for his short story “How to Draw Her,” which plays with perceptions of art, desire and relationships.
His mother and brother accepted his trophy, an original creation by Jamal Ifill of Crystal Forms, and a cheque for $500.00 on his behalf at the National Cultural Foundation's West Terrace office in early December.
For the fifth year running, ArtsEtc is pleased to bring its annual Independence Reading List. The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.
Anthology preview
THE YEAR we lost Miss Mattie, there was an odd emptiness in the house. I was too young to understand as much about death as I do now but it seemed my older sisters did, especially Emma—she was closest to Miss Mattie and, despite her smiles, I knew she was sad. I didn’t like her being sad.
Anthology preview
WHEN I was younger I thought that coconut trees were like giant birds, their fronds gently flapping in the wind. I would sit in our wraparound veranda or in my bedroom looking out at the tall bird-trees with their curved trunks. I would just sit and watch them, waiting for a great whoosh as the wings would begin to flap and the tree would take off and go wherever it was that birds that size would go.
The ArtsEtc Winning Words Anthology: NIFCA 2013/2014 is now out!
The anthology, which features some searing, provocative and thoughtful work from Barbadian writers on themes such as gender, sexuality, race, and nationhood, sees ArtsEtc continuing in its role as producer and co-sponsor of the National Cultural Foundation's series showcasing award-winnning entries from its NIFCA Literary Arts Competitions.
An essential lecture, and the inaugural one in a series established by the University of the West Indies' Cultural Studies Department, in honour of Kamau Brathwaite. It was given at UWI's Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, Barbados, on March 22, 2015. (Video reproduced by kind permission.)
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ON A RECENT trip to Puerto Rico, Robert Hill, a professor at UCLA, chanced upon an artwork by Antonio Martorell on display in the Museo de Arte at the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey. It was a mural entitled Las Antillas Letradas, and was composed of portraits of some of the region's authors layered over maps and fragments of text to form a literary A-Z—28 portraits in all to reflect a bygone Spanish alphabet.
