Just as Guyana was preparing to honour its women writers, Maggie Harris brings more fame to the land of many writers by winning the 2014 Commonwealth Prize for the Caribbean Region with her short story ‘Sending for Chantal.’ The Prize website described the story thus: The leaving of children with relatives whilst parents go abroad to seek employment is a familiar story, borne by promises of eventually being ‘sent for.’ But what happens when a child never gets sent for? The central question remains, how do we measure achievement, and at what cost is economic migration to displaced and ‘broken’ families?

Harris has achieved such a feat, following in the ink-flow of Mark McWatt (book of short fiction), Karen King-Aribisala (novel and book of stories), David Dabydeen (book of poems), Pauline Melville (book of short stories), Dennis Nichols (short story) and Grace Nichols (book of poems).
The first Guyanese to have won a Commonwealth Prize is Grace Nichols who won it in 1983 for her collection of poems, ‘I is a Long-Memoried Woman’ which is a mythic story of an Afro-Caribbean woman going through all the stages of historic exploitation. Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana in the 1950s. She migrated to the UK in the 1970s and is making significant contribution to children literature.
In 1984, David Dabydeen won the Commonwealth Prize for his first collection of poems, ‘Slave Song’; the title denotes a contradiction between slave and song where the author showed a ‘way of life that survived brilliantly and wickedly, mischievously and tragically, in spite of certain experiences of violence and brutality.’ David Dabydeen was born on the Corentyne Coast of Guyana in the 1950s. He migrated to the UK in the late 1960s from where he is making a significant contribution to literature.
In 1999, Karen King-Aribisala won the prize in the Best First Book category with her collection of story stories, ‘Our Wife and Other Stories.’
In 2000, Dennis Nichols won with his short story ‘The Release’ which is a hilarious clash between Standard English and Creolese in a classroom setting. Nichols, born in Guyana migrated to the Caribbean and is related to Grace Nichols.
In 2005, Mark McWatt won the Prize in two categories for his collection of short fiction, ‘Suspended Sentences’; winning in the Best First Book category for Canada and the Caribbean region and for Overall Best First Book. Mark McWatt, born in Guyana, is now working out of Barbados from the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.
In 2008 Karen King-Aribisala won the prize for the Best Book in the African region, making it twice she has won the Commonwealth Prize. Karen King-Aribisala was born in Guyana; she now lives in Nigeria and is attached to the Department of English at the University of Lagos.
Pauline Melville in 1991 won the Best First Book Overall with her book of short stories, ‘Shape-shifters.’ She was born in Guyana in 1948 and is now based in the UK.

Maggie Harris was born in 1954 in New Amsterdam, Berbice. New Amsterdam has spawned some of the most significant Guyanese writers including Wilson Harris and Edgar Mittelholzer. Her father worked for the Reynolds Metals Company. Her mother was from Demerara.
Maggie Harris started her formal education at a primary school before moving to a convent in New Amsterdam. At eleven, she won a Reynolds scholarship to St. Rose’s High School in Georgetown but completed her formal education at Berbice High School. Here, she confessed with delight that she received an excellent and well-rounded education which exposed her and increased her thirst for art and literature. Her artistic inclination was encouraged by Stanley Greaves, an artist and poet, and her drawings found an outlet in her school’s magazine. Literature was enhanced by her teachers and by VSOs who knew the role literature plays in the development of a nation. Her good grades at General Certificate of Examinations (G.C.E) show her bias to English Literature, English Language and Art. Harris was also part of the Berbice Arts Theatre which performed at the Town Hall, New Amsterdam. So her formative years in British Guiana were full and fruitful.
In 1971, Maggie Harris migrated to the UK where she started a family that put her artistic inclinations on hold. This is an unfortunate act to women in society–putting their career on hold. Fortunately and to the greater benefit to mankind, many women have risen to the challenge, coping with such a delay with dignity, fortifying themselves for the next opportunity to exhale. And exhale she did when the time was ripe.
In 2000, her book of poems, Limbolands, won her the Guyana Prize for Literature. Her other literary and artistic awards include Leverhulme Research Abroad for Performance Poetry in Barbados, and MUZE for Women Writers in Europe.
Her other books include ‘From Berbice to Broadstairs,’ ‘After a Visit to a Botanical Garden,’ ‘Sixty Years of Loving,’ ‘Canterbury Tales on Cockcrow Morning’ and a few memoirs.
Maggie Harris was a founder member of ‘The Write Women.’

*During the month of May 2014, the Ministry of Human Services in collaboration with the National Library (with contribution from the University of Guyana Library) staged an exhibition honouring fifty Guyanese women writers.

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Written By Petamber Persaud