Guyana Prize for Literature shortlists picked

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 21:01 by GxMedia

The Jury of the Guyana Prize for Literature on Tuesday announced the Shortlists ahead of the Awards Ceremony to be held later this month.

The awards will be presented to the Winners by His Excellency President Donald Ramotar. Chair of the Jury Prof Jane Bryce will read the Judges’ Report.  The event, which is open to the public, is scheduled for September 15 at 7 PM at the Pegasus Hotel. The Guyana Prize for Literature was established in 1987 to provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing among Guyanese in particular and Caribbean writers in general.

The Shortlists and Winners were decided by a Jury made up of very distinguished judges, selected by the Guyana Prize Management Committee because of their outstanding credentials in the field of literature as literary critics, academics, literary editors, authors and creative writers.

The selections in each case are listed in alphabetical order according to the authors.

BEST BOOK OF FICTION

Ruel Johnson – Collected Fictions

A semi-autobiographical collection of short fiction that addresses racial and political tensions, relationships and displacement.   

Chaitram Singh – The February 23rd Coup

A fast-paced fictional account of an attempted coup by a group of disaffected Guyanese soldiers. 

BEST BOOK OF POETRY

Cassia Alphonso – Black Cake Mix

A collection of evocative poems with a well-realized creole voice.

Ian McDonald – The Comfort of All Things

Elegiac musings by a mature poet on aging and mortality.

Sasenarine Persaud – Lantana Strangling Ixora

Complex, introspective poems with a bitter edge.

BEST DRAMA

Harold Bascom – Deportee

A screenplay for a crime thriller set in New York and Georgetown, involving deportation, narcotrafficking and corruption.

Mosa Mathifa Telford – Sauda

A morality tale about the need for understanding and forgiveness between mothers and daughters, and the difficulties of escaping from a legacy of self-contempt.

BEST FIRST BOOK OF FICTION

Only ONE entry was shortlisted from among those in this category. It will therefore be declared the winner.

BEST FIRST BOOK OF POETRY

No work was considered suitable for a shortlist in this category.
 

For more information, please contact:Al Creighton, Secretary, Management Committee on 640-3867

Jane Bryce – is Chairman of the Jury; Professor of African Literature and Film, Dept of Language, Linguistics and Literature, UWI, Cave Hill; former Head of the Dept. Fiction Writer – has published prose works and short fiction; Co-Editor of Poui, the Cave Hill Journal of creative writing; has conducted courses in creative writing; a leading scholar on African and Caribbean film, director of film festivals, and of the Barbados Frank Collymore literary award; is a native of Tanzania.

Brendan de Caires – Literary Critic, Reviewer, working in Canada, has worked in Trinidad; was an editor and book reviewer for the Caribbean Review of Books (CRB) and for review section of Caribbean Beat; has published literary articles and reviews; a co-founder of Moray House in Georgetown; is a native of Guyana.

Louis Regis– Head, Dept. of Literary, Cultural & Communication Studies, UWI, St Augustine; a specialist in West Indian Literature, Cultural Studies & Cultural History; a leading scholar on the literature and culture, an authority on the political calypso in Trinidad; has researched and published on carnival and calypso, including studies of Black Stalin and Maestro; has been a theatre director; is a native of Trinidad and Tobago.

Daizal Samad – Professor of Literature; a Fiction Writer, has published short fiction; Director of the UG Berbice Campus at Tain; a graduate of UG Dept of English; has worked in Canada and the Middle East; published extensively on literature; is known for wide ranging outreach work in Berbice; was born in Guyana.

Lori Shelbourn – Univ. of Leeds, UK; researched extensively on Wilson Harris for doctoral studies at Leeds and is an authority on Harris; Researcher of West Indian Literature; is a literary editor and writer of literary entries for Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia; directed international conference on Caribbean literature and Culture in the UK; is a native of Britain. #