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Filmmaker Molefi K. Asante, Jr.
opens St. Martin Book Fair
in
Marigot, June 4, 2009, 8pm
GREAT BAY, St.
Martin (May 24, 2009)
Dr. Molefi K.
Asanté, Jr. will open the 7th annual St. Martin Book
Fair at the Chamber of Commerce Building
in Marigot on Thursday, June 4, 2009, at 8 PM, said Shujah Reiph, book
fair coordinator. Dr. Asante,
award-wining filmmaker, author and professor, will
“bring a unique, highly informed and fresh meaning as
the keynote speaker to our 2009 book fair theme of
‘Wired,’” said Reiph.
The Philadelphia
Inquirer calls Asante “a rare, remarkable talent that
brings to mind the great artists of the Harlem
Renaissance.”
www.mkasante.com. The author of three
celebrated books, Asante is the recipient of the 2009
Langston Hughes Award. His latest book, It’s Bigger
Than Hip Hop, which will be available at the St.
Martin Book Fair, was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as
“An empowering book that moves you to action and to
question status quo America.”
Asante’s poetry
books are
Beautiful. And Ugly Too and
Like Water Running Off My Back, an
Academy of American Poets Jean Corrie Prize winner.
Asante directed and produced The Black Candle, a
film narrated by Maya Angelou. The Morgan State
University professor is also the writer/producer of
500 Years Later, winner of numerous awards
including Best International Documentary at the Harlem
International Film Festival; and the Breaking the Chains
award from the UN.
Lucia Nankoe
According to Reiph,
Lucia Nankoe from the Netherlands is another writer
among the some 10 authors that will visit St. Martin for
“the book fair for the entire family.” Nankoe lectures
French, French media and literature at the University of
Utrecht. The advisor for various Dutch literature
committees also edits manuscripts for publishers and is
an editor for the Winternachten Literature Festival. Nankoe’s The Coming of the Snake
woman (Komst van de Slangenvrouw), an anthology of
Caribbean women stories, was published by
VanGennep-Novib in 1998. Nankoe is scheduled to perform
her newest work, about the 2009 Guadeloupe-Martinique
labor demonstrations, at the St. Martin Book Fair.
The St. Martin Book Fair, June 4-6,
is organized by Conscious Lyrics Foundation and House of
Nehesi Publishers in collaboration with the St. Maarten
Tourist Bureau and the University of St. Martin (USM). The book fair venues for 2009 are
the Chamber of Commerce Building, USM, Marigot Public
Library, Belair Community Center and schools throughout
the island.
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Radisson Resort reception for St. Martin Book Fair
authors
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MARIGOT,
St. Martin (May 28, 2009)—A reception is
planned for 15 authors at the Radisson
luxury resort on June 3, said Shujah Reiph,
St. Martin Book Fair coordinator.
On
Tuesday, Reiph discussed the reception with
Jeffrey A. Lesker, general manager of
Radisson St. Martin Resort, Marina & Spa at
the secluded Anse Marcel.
“It was
a very friendly meeting. We all seem to
share the enthusiasm for the 7th annual St.
Martin Book Fair as an original cultural and
visitor experience,” said Reiph. Minerva Dormoy,
Collectivity Culture Department head, attended the
meeting. “The hard working Culture Department, with the
strong support of Collectivity President Gumbs, is a
significant sponsor for the book fair this year,” said
Reiph. |
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“As a world-class
resort, the generosity of Radisson is also an investment
in cultural and intellectual activities and exchanges
between St. Martin’s people and our visitors. And as far
as I know these are two very old pillars of tourism,”
said Reiph.
Most of the
authors, a number of which are well celebrated
throughout the Caribbean, the USA, Canada, and Europe,
will be visiting St. Martin for the first time.
At the Radisson
reception the authors, workshop leaders, organizers and
sponsors will “meet and greet in a relaxed atmosphere
the day before the book fair starts. After that it’s
three hectic days of lectures, discussions, workshops,
and school visits,” said Reiph.
“At the reception
we plan to make a special presentation to four
longstanding contributors and sponsors of the St. Martin
Book Fair,” said Reiph.
Among the confirmed
poets, novelists, scholars, artists, and workshop
leaders for the St. Martin Book Fair 2009 – up to 15
people from about 10 a few days ago, are: George Lamming
(Barbados), Dr. Molefi K. Asante, Jr. (USA), Sir Roland
Richardson (St. Martin), Dr. Afua Cooper
(Canada/Jamaica), Dr. Judith Arndell (St. Martin),
Nicole Cage (Martinique), Dr. Danabang Kuwabong
(Ghana/Puerto Rico), Caridad Tamayo Fernández (Cuba),
Dr. Sandra Paquet (USA), Ernest Pépin (Guadeloupe),
Lochard Noel (USA/Haiti), Nicholas Laughlin (Trinidad &
Tobago), Max Rippon (Guadeloupe), Mustafa Stitou
(Netherlands/Morocco), Lucia Nankoe
(Netherlands/Suriname, and Prof. Carole Mauge-Lewis
(USA). All book fair workshops are free to the general
public.
The St. Martin Book
Fair, June 4-6, is organized annually by Conscious
Lyrics Foundation and House of Nehesi Publishers in
collaboration with the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau and
the University of St. Martin (USM).
The 2009 venues for
“the book fair for the entire family” are the Chamber of
Commerce Building, USM, Marigot Public Library, Belair
Community Center and schools throughout the island.
Source:
House of Nehesi
* * * * *
The joy of reading shared with the elderly
GREAT BAY/MARIGOT
(May 31, 2009)—As the St. Martin Book Fair Committee (BFC)
gears up for the 7th annual St. Martin Book Fair, June 4
– 6, 2009, youngsters and seniors were brought together
recently to share “the joy of reading and Caribbean
books,” said Shujah Reiph, book fair coordinator. For
the recent pre-book fair activity, BFC connected school
children and the elderly at the St. Martin Home at St.
John Estate (Photo 1) and the Bethany Home in Marigot
(Photo 2). “It was a beautiful and dignified sight to
see those from a generation that once told us stories
from memory now enjoying stories being read to them from
Caribbean books by our youngsters,” said Reiph. In the
photos, pupils pose with residents of the senior
citizens homes following the story
readings.
Photo 1:
Georgiyann Richardson, MAC Browlia Milliard Campus, read
from
Brotherhood of the Spurs by Lasana M. Sekou
and Xenji Wyatt, Sr. Magda School, read from
Claude’s Adventure by Wendy-Ann Diaz.
Photo 2:
Joseph Maccow, CIA secondary school, read from
Brotherhood of the Spurs
and Casimir Woolgens, Nina Duverly School, read from Une robe couleur
soleil by Nicole Cage-Florentiny. Woolgens is also
the winner of his school’s 5th Grade reading contest
2009. Wyatt is the winner of the 2009 readerthon
organized by Philipsburg Jubilee Library. (CLF photo)
Source:
House of Nehesi
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George Lamming.
Sovereignty of the Imagination: Language and the Politics of
Ethnicity - Conversations III
Political philosophy,
Literature, Caribbean history, Language studies. According
to Prof. Anthony Bogues,
The Sovereignty of the Imagination gives us that
capacity for language and therefore the ability to name and
establish categories. But this is not just a literary
capacity; it allows us to define freedom. George Lamming
recognizes the centrality of the quest for freedom for the
social group that he calls 'this world of men and women from
down below.'
George Lamming is an illustrious Caribbean novelist and
cultural critic from Barbados. His novels and volumes of
essays and literary criticism offer insightful analyses on
history, western philosophy, racism, colonization,
education, literature and Caribbean independence. |
Sovereignty of the Imagination
By George Lamming
Is main book at
St. Martin Book Fair
GREAT BAY, St.
Martin (June 2, 2009)—The new book by illustrious
Caribbean novelist/thinker George Lamming has just been
published here, said Jacqueline Sample, president of
House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).
Sovereignty of the Imagination with its
main essays “Sovereignty of the Imagination” and
“Language and the Politics of Ethnicity,” is the third
Conversations title by Lamming and the second in the
series published in St. Martin by HNP.
“The tight
relationship between politics, knowledge, language, and
the spaces of freedom in Lamming’s writings makes him
one of the most important political novelists in
Caribbean Literature,” said Anthony Bogues, a political
scientist at Brown University. Writer Fabian
Badejo said that the Barbadian author’s text is
“rich, elegant and intellectually seductive as
ever; the thrust always towards a new Caribbean ‘with
the sovereign right to define its own reality and order
its own priorities’.”
“It is as if he were humming Bob Marley’s Redemption
Song as a dirge, then intoning it as an anthem of
‘cultural sovereignty’ which [Lamming] describes as ‘the
free definition and articulation of the collective self,
whatever the rigor of external constraints’,” said
Badejo. “For Lamming to
publish a book of this quality in St. Martin, in the
Caribbean, is also an investment in his belief and work,
in the people and region where his life’s commitment
abides,” said Sample.
In the essay
“Language and the Politics of Ethnicity” Lamming brings
up a daring and widening definition of Caribbean people,
culture and identity that embraces the region’s African
and East Indian descendants in what we might call in St.
Martin a ‘bold and brave’ way,” said Sample.
 |
In the
essay “Sovereignty of the Imagination”
Lamming’s take on Caribbean political
parties and unions may be troubling to some,
especially politicians, but will be
revealing to other.
Dr.
Lamming also challenges us to face up to the
difference between governing and ruling in a
region where the majority of the nation are
independent but where realizing sovereignty
is still a profound struggle, said Sample.
According to Badejo, Lamming, as an abiding
father of Caribbean literature, is “daring
us to embrace a new definition of ourselves
as we seek to carve out a niche for our
democratic future in a world bent on
branding us as victims of the past.”“
Lamming’s preoccupation with freedom is
today very apropos because one feature of
our contemporary world is the resurgence of
a current of thought and action, which
heralds the virtues of empire,” said Bogues, who is also a scholar
with the Center for Caribbean Thought. |
The book party for
Sovereignty of the Imagination is the
high point of the Book Fair closing ceremony at Belair
Community Center, Saturday, June 6, 2009, at 8 PM.
Lamming will be on hand to hear scholar and University
of Miami professor Sandra Paquet deliver the
introductory remarks about his new book, said Sample.
Books by George Lamming
In the
Castle of My Skin (1953),
The Emigrants (1954),
Of
Age and Innocence (1958),
Season of Adventure (1960),
and essays -
The Pleasure of Exile (1960).
Conversations II: Western Education and the Caribbean
Intellectual (2000) /
Black World (March 1973) /
Canon Shot and Glass Beads (1974)
The History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905 (1981)
/
Natives of My Person (1972) /
Water with Berries (1972)
* * * * *
The President
of
The University of St. Martin
cordially invites you to the Symposium
of the
7th annual St. Martin Book Fair
Friday, June 5, 2009
4 pm – 5:30 pm
President’s Forum, University of
St. Martin, Rm 202
The forum,
sponsored by the president of the University of St.
Martin, will look at the development and current state
of Casa de las Américas – particularly its “wiring” of
traditional and new media technologies and content
diversification – while celebrating its 50th anniversary
in 2009, as arguably the oldest and premier Caribbean
media organization that promotes, researches, supports,
awards and publishes the works of Caribbean and Latin
American writers, sculptors, musicians, and other
artists and students of literature and the arts.
* * * * *
Ms. Caridad Tamayo Fernández, presenter
Author, literary research specialist, educator
Center for Literary Research
(Centro de Investigaciones Literarias)
Casa de las Américas, Cuba
Discussants
Dr. M.K. Asante, Jr.
Filmmaker, poet, author, professor
Morgan State University, USA
Dr. Sandra Paquet
Author, professor, literary scholar
University of Miami, USA
Mr. Fabian Adekunle Badejo
Author, literary and cultural critic, editor
House of Nehesi Publishers, St. Martin
Mrs. Josianne Fleming-Artsen, introduction
President, University of St. Martin
Ms. Rhoda Arrindell, rapporteur/moderator
Head, Language Division, University of St. Martin
* * *
* *
* * * * *
 |
Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
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1975
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1985
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____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 24 May 2009
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