THE COUNTY of Berbice, Guyana, has produced a large number of outstanding male writers, but only a few female writers of note. Many of the male writers have already garnered recognition, local and international. The few women writers therefore warrant some more attention.
The women writers of note were the ones who had the good fortune of being published. The situation is the same for other parts of Guyana: A long list of male writers and a sprinkling of female writers.
The male writers who are products of the county of Berbice include E. R. Braithwaite, Edgar Mittelholzer, David Dabydeen, Cyril Dabydeen, Peter Kempadoo, N. E. Cameron, Slade Hopkinson, and Wilson Harris.
The names of the female writers are Beryl Gilroy, Jan Lo Shinebourne, Ryhaan Shah and Evadne D’Oliveira.
Shinebourne and Shah have won the Guyana Prize for Literature, while Gilroy was bestowed with a Guyana Prize Special Award. D’Oliveira is perhaps the least known among the current generation, but she did make her mark on the landscape of Guyanese literature, and attracted much attention in her heyday.
Evadne D’Oliveira is the most versatile writer of the lot. D’Oliveira was a poet, short-story writer and playwright. Her versatility was also portrayed in her ability to use one storyline in different genres of writing.
For example, ‘Seraphon’ was written both as a story and a very long poem; ‘The Scattered Jewels’ was written both as a short-story and a stage play; and ‘Tukeit’ was written both as a poem and a short-story.
D’Oliveira was enterprising, experimenting with her art and craft. Her leaning towards drama showed how much she wanted to connect. She was not contented to write only, and leave the material in the domain of the reader. She wanted to get a feel; an instant response to her work — that’s how serious an artist she was, and patriotic, concerned for the state of her country: ‘the night that looms ahead, should it be dark/would we survive, my country, you and I?
Evadne D’Oliveira was born in New Amsterdam, Berbice. Her formative days were spent at Number 63 Village, Corentyne, looking out to the Atlantic Ocean and towards the neighbouring country of Suriname, and in the bustling township of New Amsterdam where she attended Berbice High School.
Number 63 Village is now famous for its Number 63 Beach, which one poet, J. W. Chinapen, trying to capture the essence of that area, said: ‘It dawned on me/Christ trod the peaceful sands of Sixty-three!’
Apart from those two locations, D’Oliveira was able to see other parts of the country due to the movement of the family, whose head had to travel from place to place as his job warranted. And she is at her poetic best in her nature writing.
In ‘Potaro’, she pays homage to this grand river that ‘strives through our virgin forest/Like a giant/With all the exaggerated swagger of conceit’. Hear the reverence in her voice: ‘whisper the name in accents low/Potaro!’
She also pays homage to Tukeit: ‘nestles serenely in the/lap of Beauty/Rimmed by the dark, meandering Potaro/ov’rshadowed by the green magnitude/of Forests/She smiles in quiet undisturbed mirth/in merry, white-sanded innocence/at Mankind’.
‘Seraphon’, subtitled ‘The Passionate Mermaid: A Ballad’, is a heart-wrenching love story between human and denizen of the deep. ‘Seraphon’ is one of the few narrative poems in our literature. Through this poem, D’Oliveira was again able to show her versatility.
Narrative was her game-plan. In Georgetown, her story tells of an active social life. Marriage, children, writer’s groups, print media. She was columnist and editor for the Guyana Chronicle newspaper. She was also founder/president of the Maranatha Stage Production. She was a member of P.E.N. International, and the Guyana Writers’ Group, which included Cecile Nobrega, Doris Harper-Wills, Rajkumari Singh, Syble Douglas and others.
Many of her contemporaries were playwrights. So there was drama in her blood. When she produced the play, ‘The Scattered Jewels’, it was an instant success. That play was staged in Georgetown and in Mackenzie (Linden). That was not her only contribution to drama. In 1968, her short-story, ‘Drama at Tukeit’ was broadcast as ‘The Choice’ by the BBC.
Her contribution to radio was also significant. For many years, she wrote stories especially for ‘Broadcast to School’. Her poetry found their way into many anthologies, including ‘Guyana Drums’, published in 1972, which included the poetry of Syble Douglas, Sheila King, and Shana Yardan, and in ‘An Anthology of Voices of Guyana’, edited by Donald Trotman in commemoration of International Human Rights Year.
D’Oliveira published two collections of her poems, ‘When Poet Sings’ and ‘Ushering in the Millennium’. She also published a collection of her stories, ‘The Scattered Jewels’, which was launched in Barbados and in Toronto.
Evadne D’Oliveira started writing at an early age; one source named age twelve as to when she started her writing career. In 1979, she emigrated to Canada, where she lived until she departed this world in 2010. Evadne D’Oliveira made a significant contribution to the shaping of Guyanese Literature through her poetry, plays and short-stories, using the print media, the stage, and radio.
WHAT’S HAPPENING:
• A UNESCO-sponsored one-week creative writing workshop is set for Monday, August 8, 2011, between 09:00h and 16:00h. This project will be supervised by Writers in Concert (WICK), headed by Mr. Petamber Persaud. Limited places are available on a ‘first-come-first-serve’ basis. Facilitators will include local and international teachers/writers. The venue is the national Library. In order to apply, please email me your intention.
(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)
