Contemporary Guyanese Literature (Part II)
(Part I of an interview with Juanita Cox on the Guyana Prize for Literature and contemporary Guyanese Literature, Georgetown, Guyana, 2011. Juanita Cox is writing her PhD thesis on ‘Edgar Mittelholzer and the shaping of his novels’ at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is an Associate Fellow of the London Metropolitan University where she lectures in Caribbean Studies and Black British History. She presented on Mittelholzer at the XXVIII Conference on West Indian Literature, staged here in Guyana in 2009. In 2011, she was a judge for the Guyana Prize for Literature 2010; the Prize was awarded in 2011.)
PP: YOU HAVE just taken another and closer look at contemporary Guyanese writing. Has this exercise given you any other insight into the work of Edgar Mittelholzer? [Cox an authority on Mittelholzer]
JC: Yes! I think it has in a number of ways. One of the first things I must say is that I spend much of my time on critical analysis, and that can take a long, long time as you are looking very closely at the text. But until now, I’ve been slightly less conscious of texts from the point of view of a reviewer. They are more likely to take a book, read it within a day (maybe two or three), and then take a position on it without much further ado. As a critic, I tend to read a book once, twice, umpteen times, and welcome the challenge of unravelling more complex texts. But for a book to be commercially viable, it is also desirable that it has immediate readability and broad appeal. I think I’m now more aware of the challenges a complex writer like Mittelholzer must have faced. There are so many different audiences: The publishers, the reviewers, the critics, a general readership (local and abroad), and target readers, and they are all looking for different things.
PP: You mentioned the complexity of Mittelholzer’s writing. I have read a majority of his books, and I like the story (the straightforward story). And I know, thanks to you and your scholarship on the man, about the complexity of the man. Advise us: How do we look at his work, as a lay reader and as a reviewer/critic?
JC: I think that Mittelholzer was a skilled but uneven writer…
PP: There are writers… For instance, George Lamming, who totally disregarded, dismissed Mittelholzer as a skilled writer.
JC: Yes. But I think that was more to do with his style of writing and general perspective on things. Mittelholzer would write about the middleclass as in Sylvia or A Tale of Three Places, and Lamming was more interested in the working-class. They didn’t share the same politics. Unlike many of the people from the 1950s generation of writers, Mittelholzer showed no interest in West Indian nationalism.  But Lamming, despite his well-known dislike of Mittelholzer, was always one of the first to defend his importance as a pioneer of Caribbean literature.
PP: Lamming’s politics was socialist/Marxist.
JC: Yes! He was much more socialist in his thinking.
PP: How far different was he to Mittelholzer in political leanings?
JC: Funnily enough, Mittelholzer was interested in Marxism in the 1930s, but somewhere along the line (circa late 1940s/early 1950s), he became disillusioned by it. By the late 1950s, it is clear that Mittelholzer was very consciously distancing himself from the politics of the region, and became more drawn to rightwing ideologies. He wanted to be known; to become famous as a writer; not for being Caribbean, and not for being Black… He just wanted to be famous for being a writer; he just didn’t want to be put into a box. Most of the writers of the 1950s were trying to write as West Indians, and were trying to write primarily about West Indian realities and all the issues that concerned them. Mittelholzer was more interested in exploring commonalities: He wanted to highlight what West Indians had in common with everybody else in the world; with every human being. I think it fair to say that most regional writers were interested in what made West Indians distinct; different from other peoples, as in what made them special.
PP: What do you think Mittelholzer would say if he was called a Black writer?
JC: I can’t begin to think what he would say! He would perhaps be indignant … he probably wouldn’t respond. I suppose the character, Richard Lehrer, a self-portrait in Latticed Echoes, provides clues as to how he might have responded to the question in the later stages of his life. He hated to be defined by skin colour, because of the social connotations. When talking about Mittelholzer and ‘race’, you always have to remember the historical context into which he was born. Mittelholzer just wanted to be accepted as an individual.  If a person was intelligent and interested in literature and wanted to discuss things of interest with him, he would have engaged with them, whatever their colour.  As Gilkes has highlighted, his attitude to race was ambivalent.
PP: So, there is more to Mittelholzer than colour?
JC: A lot more. His life had been damaged by his father’s attitude to colour. His father was Negrophobic; he was a racist. He believed that Mittelholzer’s swarthy complexion was a biologically determined index of inferior intelligence. Mittelholzer was always aware of that, but he also saw the injustice of that, and I think he spent most of his life, whether consciously or unconsciously, trying to divorce himself from the social connotations of skin colour; he wanted to be defined as a human being.
PP: The contemporary writers… You just had another and closer look at our contemporary writers. How are these writers grappling with local themes and issues?
JC: There is an exciting diversity of ideas emerging from writers in Guyana.  Although, for various reasons, many of the books didn’t get shortlisted, I’d like to stress that there is a lot of potential. The old lady in Imhoff’s shortlisted play, The Changing Hand, seemed authentic. Algu’s science fiction, Makoniama-Galileo Guiana 2020 was entertaining and unique, whilst Noble’s Intertwined was both relevant and intriguing. There are clearly a lot of talented people, but what struck me was the general lack of editing. Writers need to pay closer attention to structure, grammar, and proofreading, and need to be careful of ‘preaching’. We need to do what we can to support local writers by increasing the number of creative writing workshops that are presently available.
I don’t know how many people are aware of Mittelhozer’s career. But it might help to know that he wrote fifteen novels before he was first published. I mean: It can sometimes take a very long, long time when you don’t have guidance to become a skilled writer. You know: Some writers interrupt the flow of their story by writing at great length on superficial, unimportant issues. The story itself might be great; the idea might be great; but they go on and on, and they belabour issues that don’t add anything to the overall novel. Or, it might be that the dialogue is unconvincing, and you can tell that they simply did not spend enough time trying to get it right. But I think the key thing is you cannot write in isolation.
PP: Meaning?
JC: I think most people have this vision that a writer just sits there and writes… and that’s it; that his [or her] work is done. You need people to read over your work… It is really good to get the input of other people.
I was listening to the radio in the UK about Jane Austen and the role her publisher played, editing her novels. Thousands of words from her novels would be edited out. Proofreaders, editors and the like can all play a key role in tweaking the novel; reshaping the novel. Few authors produce a finished piece of work without the input of others.
PP: Indeed, I know of many instances, writers that I know who complained that sometimes the editor will send back a manuscript that is ‘unrecognisable’. Was Mittelholzer learning [improving, developing] as he was writing? Have you had a look at his manuscripts? Were you able to see the movement; the progress; the progression towards the finished product?
JC: I have read correspondence between Mittelholzer and his publishers. One of Mittelholzer’s flaws certainly seems to have been that he would stubbornly refuse to take the advice of his publishers. He was very stubborn … and most writers are. I mean: You are very proud of what you have created, and you really don’t want someone tweaking your work. And it is very painful when someone tweaks your work. And Mittelholzer could not bear it. He would send his manuscripts to publishers, and they would send them back saying: ‘You have to change ‘X’, ‘Y’ or ‘Z’.’ Sometimes, it would be a particular scene they didn’t like.  Whatever the case, they would ask for it to be amended or rewritten. And he would refuse. Sylvia is a classic example, whereby the book was written in 1943, but was only published about ten years later, because he was adamant that he would not change anything.
PP: Was he right?
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