Restoring the power of literature
Arts on Sunday
by Al Creighton
Stabroek News
July 6, 2003
During this week-end in the Guyoil conference room, a symposium on literature, titled “Literature is Life”, is taking place. It seems to be aimed at both the producers and the consumers of literature, and addresses the concerns about the quality of work produced by local writers. But there is also a concern for what is perceived to be a low level of interest among the reading public.
The event is organized by Roopnandan Singh, the President and the main moving force behind the Association of Guyanese Writers and Artists (AGWA). It is a forum for self –examination among resident and visiting authors, including Ian McDonald, Paloma Mohamed and Rooplall Monar, in the context of a society that they seek to influence.
This symposium brings together “writers, academics, laymen, public officers and business people” as Singh outlines it. They are examining “the role and responsibilities of writers and their contribution to a better society and a better world”. AGWA has brought new writing to the public and now focuses further dimensions of this contact between writer and society.
“We want society as a whole to realize that reading literature is like learning from the institution of life. There are so many lessons we can learn from so many writers because of the power of their messages”. This restatement emphasizes the practical value of literature in the daily lives of individuals, who, without being aware of it, are continually influenced by what they read as fiction and see acted out in dramatic fashion.
For this reason, the symposium is also addressing “the responsibility aspect” according to Singh. “There are good books as well as bad ones. Obviously they influence people, society, the world. Literature can help shape the world. What can we do to help people realize the power of literature ?”
Through this event, AGWA is therefore attempting to provide further sensitization to the extent and potential of this power.
In an age overpowered by technology and economics, readers, (who have become an endangered species), are generally not conditioned to believe that fiction, poetry and drama have that kind of practical power.
That is the situation globally, but it is quite pronounced in Guyana where the size of the reading public has particularly diminished. The potential for a positive influence being exerted by literature in a Guyanese society well in need of it was a long time ago undermined by a number of factors.
Most prominent is the often justified, low opinion that contemporary readers have of local writing by which they are unlikely to be affected and whose power to influence them is, in any case, weak.
Like any other country in the Caribbean where opportunity, facilities, market and audience were insufficient for the support of career writers, Guyana experienced the emigration of most of the really good ones to the First World.
Additionally, in a country with a long-standing traditional oral culture, the colonial education system conspired to limit the size of the reading population.
However, recent politics played its part. During that oft-mentioned era of the seventies and eighties many good writers fled or were driven away by a regime suspicious of any literature that was not in praise of the government and prepared to take action against dissenting authors. Most local literature plummeted to outstanding mediocrity and has not hastily recovered.
It brought on a period of intellectual and creative drought when books also disappeared, taking with them the culture and the habit of reading. One of the main reasons for the shortage of literature was the unavailability of foreign exchange and a curtailment in the importation of books.
Nationally, this caused a drastic alienation of a whole generation from the advantages to be gained from reading good literature, or even knowing what it is. Ironically, it was this same problem that prompted the creation of the Guyana Prize. After the passing of that era, one of the many other efforts made to repair the damage, was the formation of the Association of Guyanese Writers and Artists. The Association has been involved in several public readings and launching of its publications. It has tried to organize a group of people from different backgrounds whose link is an interest in creative writing.
In many ways, AGWA’s activities are on the right track even if it has not yet restored local literature to the desired heights. Many other facilities are needed to achieve that. However, it is known that the development of Guyanese literature has always been assisted by a climate in which certain stimuli were present. There were locally accessible publication outlets including Kyk-Over-Al, New World Fortnightly, The Chronicle Christmas Annual and publications of the Department of Culture such as Kaie. There were groups of persons who met routinely for the purpose of reading and discussing literature. These included a group with Martin Carter at its center in the early 1960s, another collective around 1970 which produced Jan Shinebourne, yet another later on out of which Mahadai Das emerged and the Annandale Writers’ Group which included Rooplall Monar.
AGWA has exposed writers to an audience through the publication of anthologies of poetry and prose, as well as new novels by the more established Monar and Roopnandan Singh. The Association has also inspired Osafa George’s Upscale Restaurant weekly Poetry Night and the Janus Young Writers Guild, out of which a Guyana Prize First Book winner, Ruel Johnson, has already emerged.
Singh has been personally responsible for the publishing and, sometimes with Monar, for editing the anthologies. This singular service to local writing was recognized by the Guyana Prize in 2000. Now he is again in the vanguard with this symposium, which can only add to other efforts, including a television series “Oral Traditions” by Petamber Persaud, in putting a developmental fillip to local literature. Success has not arrived, and will not do so overnight; there is a good deal of damage to be repaired. Neither can good writers be manufactured overnight, but to be sure, Guyana needs every little effort made in the cause of instigating improvement in local writing and the habit of reading literature provided it is well informed and well directed.