Happy Birthday, Dear Books
THIS ARTICLE started out as a tale of two outstanding books, To Kill A Mockingbird and To Sir With Love.
The idea for this article, however, started with the 50th anniversary celebration of To Kill A Mockingbird. But as I was writing, the patriotic fervour in my Guyanese literary patrimony came to the fore and stopped at To Sir With Love, as a few similarities between the two books raised their smiling ugly heads.  
The research on the two books ran into an endless paper trail heading in varied directions around the world. I unearthed significant books celebrating some sort of anniversary like Lolita  (1955) by Russian author, Vladimir Nabokov; Things Fall Apart (1958) by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe;  Lord of the Flies (1954) by Nobel Prize-winning British author, William Golding, and many others (here is an opportunity for you to add to the list of books celebrating an anniversary).

To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960, and is back in the limelight. Let me hasten to say the book was never out of the limelight. From the moment it was published, it was an instant success, and held its own into present day. Much has happened to the book since it was first published, and since its initial successes.
The most remarkable thing about the book is that it has never been out of print. Just one year after publication, it was translated into ten languages. Since then, it has been translated into some forty languages and sold over 30 millions copies, ranking just behind the Bible in books making a difference. It has been made into a successful film of the same name. To Kill A Mockingbird  won the Pulitzer Prize, and hogged the bestseller spot for some forty weeks.

To Sir With Love (1959) was written by Guyanese, E. R. Braithwaite. The novel is a poignant exploration of all forms of discrimination, especially social conditions of, and racial discrimination against, Black people. Braithwaite’s frank and crisp use of language endeared the reader to the issues, catapulting many persons to action, improving their condition, righting wrongs. Some responses to his writing were, however, distasteful, especially the ban of his books in Apartheid South Africa. Braithwaite was also able to connect to the reader on another level — his writing was a personal odyssey: A black man living in a white-dominated world, not all of it bad, as he declared while he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, for then, the colour of his skin was not an issue. “It had not mattered when I volunteered for aircrew service in 1940 … during flying training or when I received my wings…posted to a squadron…in hectic uncertainties of operational flying, of living and loving from day to day… (To Sir With Love).”

To Sir With Love was reissued more than forty times, translated into numerous other languages, studied in learning institutions worldwide, and made into an evergreen, ever-popular movie of the same name.

WHAT’S HAPPENING
•    The 2011 issue of THE GUYANA ANNUAL is under production. For further information, please go to www.guyanaannual.com (work in progress), or facebook@guyanaannual.com (up and running).
Entries can be submitted Online to: submit@guyanaannual.com . Other places to submit include Guyenterprise Ltd at Lance Gibbs and Irving Street, Queenstown, and Envisage Marketing & Technology Company, 118N Cowan Street, Kingston.   

(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)