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THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List has reached a milestone: it's now in its tenth edition!

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

Nailah Folami Imoja's novel Pick of the Crop (Heinemann, 106pp., paperback, 0-435-98966-9) opens with a familiar, Bajan, boys-on-the-block scene, complete with spliff and tamarind tree.  For a book geared toward young adult readers, this is somewhat surprising.  There is the obligatory condemnation, which comes from our hero, Leroi Baines, even as the young offenders puff on.  "I don't know why y'all always burning out wunna brains with that junk..." and "Wunna need to try and keep you mind and body clean.  How you expect to get ahead?"  But the first few pages resonate with other

Brathwaite’s risky reinvention of his important trilogy—Mother Poem (1977), Sun Poem (1982) and X/Self (1987)—has much to offer old and new readers alike. The celebrated Barbadian poet has reworked the text in his own hieroglyphic “Sycorax video style” type. His dispossessed speakers habitually declare themselves in free verse dialect.

Casting out again.  This edition's cover is by Kai Miller.  

A version of the following speech was presented by ArtsEtc Editor Robert Edison Sandiford at the launch of The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words Anthology 2017/2018 held at the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre November 14, 2019.

GOOD EVENING, ladies and gentlemen, artists and patrons, art sponsors and art angels.

I suspect what I’m about to say will sound a little like a vote of thanks.   This is, maybe more so than in past years, inevitable.