The Guyana Prize for Literature, the country’s most important and most prestigious and, until the introduction of the Golden Jubilee Awards for Literature last year and apart from the National Drama Festival which deals exclusively with Playwriting, a prize that recognizes outstanding work in Guyanese literature is set to be awarded to writers in 2017. As in past years, the Guyana Prize is awarded to writers of Guyanese nationality in several different categories: Best First Book of Poetry, Best First Book of Fiction, Best Book of Poetry, Best Book of Fiction and Best Book of Drama. The Prize also awards Books of Poetry, Fiction and Drama in separate categories for Caribbean writers (of which Guyanese writers are also included).
The Prize has attracted both praise and criticism over the years, but there is no doubt that there are several writers of note whom the Prize has recognized and rewarded and, therefore, has played some part in recognizing, and fostering the development of, Guyanese Literature. Writers like Fred D’Aguiar, David Dabydeen, Mark McWatt, Paloma Mohamed, John Agard, Wilson Harris, and Pauline Melville are just some examples of established, well-known writers who have won the Prize. Based on several questions that have been sourced from several persons who are either upcoming writers or are interested in the Prize or, as is often the case, both, we sat down for an interview with the Secretary of the Guyana Prize Management Committee, Mr. Al Creighton, in an effort to establish answers for some of the questions people still have about the competition and award.
One of the most prevailing questions often asked has to do eligibility of the entrants. It has been asked before, “Why are overseas Guyanese writers allowed to enter the Prize and compete with local writers who do not have access to the same resources or facilities as the overseas-based Guyanese?” Responding to the question, Mr. Creighton points out that the aim of the Prize is to reward the very best in Guyanese writing and that if the overseas contingent of writers are barred from entering the competition this can lead to a diminishing of the Prize, due to the fact that doing so would mean that no overseas-based Guyanese would be able enter and compete alongside local writers and, therefore the attempt to establish the best in Guyanese (whether written by non-resident Guyanese or one based in Guyana) literature would be limited to the best in Guyanese literature, based on the Guyanese writers who only live in the country. The exclusion of overseas writers would also account for a substantial portion of the entries into the Guyana Prize, according to Mr. Creighton, and the best in our literature cannot be established if the pool that we are choosing from is limited or deliberately made smaller through the exclusion of Guyanese writers who do not live in the country.
Commenting on how the judges of the competition are selected, Creighton says that they are pulled from both the foreign and local literary sector and are people who are eminent and possess the necessary criteria to be judges of literature. They are usually a mixture of critics or writers, or people who are both, and are also people of international standards who are capable of judging other prizes across the world and, in fact, several have actually done so prior to their appointment as judges to past Guyana Prize competitions.
For the many people who have always wondered about the process for choosing the books – how all the submissions which (though the numbers fluctuate, peaked at about ninety of them in one year) gets whittled down to the handful of winners, the Secretary of the Committee was also able to shed some light on that. Firstly, the six copies of the manuscript are submitted to the Office of the Guyana Prize at the University of Guyana where they are documented. Then the manuscripts are sent out to the individual judges, being mailed out if the judges are overseas. Once the judges have read all the manuscripts, a time is set for an initial meeting where the judges meet and decide the shortlist and then another for the awards ceremony. The understanding is that each judge reads each of the entries that are submitted, and there are safeguards to ensure each manuscript gets read.
The Guyana Prize will also be facilitating literary festivals (one in March and one in the week of the Guyana Prize Awards Ceremony), as well as workshops later in the year in order to generate more public interest in the work of local writers and to help upcoming writers to be more active and involved with literary things, and also to help improve the quality of the work being put out by local writers.
On the question of whether the Guyana Prize is still relevant, Mr. Creighton answers in the positive saying that “it recognizes and celebrates the best of Guyanese writing… It tells the world what has happened in Guyanese writing.” He also says that it is supposed to encourage local writers and it is meant to give them something to look to. He points to several writers who are now very prominent and got their initial literary awards from the Guyana Prize, such as Fred D’Aguiar, Paloma Mohamed, etc., perhaps alluding to the fact that the Prize is a good indicator of the young writers who will go on to do much in Guyanese and Caribbean literature.
Creighton also noted the reluctance of local writers to participate in events that the Guyana Prize organizes as one of the hindrances when it comes to bringing some awareness of what is happening in local literature to the general public. He also called for writers to not be disgruntled because they have not won the Prize after being shortlisted, noting that such behavior is not healthy and can be off-putting. He further stated that writers should not be discouraged if they have not been shortlisted, or if they do not win after being shortlisted, and that much thought must go into how to keep those writers interested in the Prize and interested in submitting to the Prize again if they have not been successful the first time around.
The deadline for submitting to the Guyana Prize is March 31st, with the Awards Ceremony is slated for July of this year. There is no word as yet as to whether the deadline for submission to this year’s Guyana Prize will be extended.