… at Guyana Prize for Literature Awards ceremony
Guyana’s legendary writer Wilson Harris, was in absentia awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature first ever “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the Awards ceremony hosted Thursday evening at the Savannah Suite, Pegasus Hotel. Collecting the prize on his behalf was Guyana-born novelist and academic David Dabydeen. Dabydeen,  is currently the Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. Dabydeen was himself a big winner of the evening, having copped the Fiction Prize for ‘Molly and the Muslim Stick’. He beat Karen King-Aribasala (The Hangman’s Game) and Janice Lowe Shinbourne (Chinese Women), who were also nominated in the same category.
This time around, a Caribbean Award was presented for the first time. Haitian author Myriam Chancy (The Loneliness of Angels) carried off the award, beating Karen Lord (Redemption in Indigo), Diana Mcaulay (Dog Heart), Patricia Powell (The Fullness of Everything) and Amanda Smyth (Black Rock).
Current head of the English Department at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, Mark McWatt, won the Poetry Prize in both the Guyana and Caribbean categories, with ‘The Journey to Le Repentir’. In the local category, he beat Brian Chan (The Gift of Screws), Stanley Greaves (The Poems Man), Maggie Harris (After a visit to the Botanical Garden), Sasenarine Persaud (In a Boston Night), and Berkeley Semple (The Central Station). In the Caribbean category, with the same work, McWatt beat John Agard (Clever Backbone), Christian Campbell (Running the Dusk), Vahni Capildeo (Undraining Sea), Ishion Hutchinson (Far District) and Jennifer Rahim (Approaching Sabbaths).
In the Guyana Drama category, Harold Bascomb (Blank Document) was the award winner, beating Janice Imhoff (The Changing Hand) and Grace Nichols (Blood and Wedding).
There were no dramatic presentations for the Caribbean Award as the deadlines for submissions have been extended.
Speaking at the event, President Bharrat Jagdeo said literature has a special role to play in a society, but particularly in a society like ours, as in a small society it is often difficult to discuss complex themes without them being trivialised and personalised.
He explained that there are often taboo subjects in the society, such as race, discrimination and identity, which often become political; but literature can deal with these subjects in an open and non-obtrusive manner, without the writer being accused of having a political agenda.
Jagdeo posited that if our society is to move forward, “we have to deal with issues of the difficult period and we have to become enlightened”, noting that literature helps people to become enlightened. He noted that literature also helps persons to develop skills to manage large flows of information and noted that only enlightened minds can do the necessary filtering.
The president stressed the importance of governments playing a part in the promotion of creativity, especially in small societies.
The objectives of the Guyana Prize for Literature, as stated by the committee, are to establish a prize for outstanding work in literature among Guyanese in order to provide a focus for the recognition of the creative writing of Guyanese at home and abroad, stimulate interest in and provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing among Guyanese in particular, and Caribbean writers in general.
During the awards presentation on the 20th anniversary of the Prize, it was declared that after contributing to the advancement of literature through the recognition of Guyanese writers, a pledge to Caribbean writing should now be honoured in a specific and direct way.
The pledge became a reality when it was announced in Georgetown on November 2, 2010, that the Government of Guyana had provided funds to the Management Committee of the Guyana Prize for the first Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award, starting with the prize for 2010.