ON OCTOBER 4, Guyana-born Rosalind McLymont will return home to launch her newest novel The Guyana Contract, an international thriller which tackles a host of issues including corporate politics; the complexities of foreign investment in developing countries and life in these countries; the frustrations of entrepreneurship; biases within the black community; and the scourges of human and drug trafficking.

The book, which is available on Amazon in both e-book and print format, will be launched at the Education Lecture Theatre, University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus on October 9 at 17:00hrs. But her return home is more than just about the book. Rosalind will also be a presenter at the Bishop’s High School’s First Annual Student Conference spearheaded by the school’s New York Tri-State Chapter. The event is being held under the theme “After Graduation — What’s Next: Preparing Our Youth For A Successful Future,” will be hosted on October 5-6.

The Pepperpot Magazine interviewed Rosalind to get an insight on her newest publication and some of her talking points at the conference.

In what ways will Guyanese (youth or otherwise) be able to relate to The Guyana Contract?

There is so much because I write fiction to entertain and educate. Guyanese can certainly relate to the social, economic, political, and folklore aspects in the Guyana settings of the novel. For example, there was a period during my primary school days at Comenius Moravian School, in Anira Street, when people reported seeing a mermaid in the Lamaha Canal.

I used that in the novel, just as I used tidbits about the man who bought scrap iron when I was a child, race relations, past neglect of Amerindians, and food shortages due to exportation. I touch on how some, not all, Guyanese in the Diaspora feel about working in Guyana in collaboration with locals, and how locals view Diaspora Guyanese who return to the country as professionals.

I touch on the inner workings of foreign investment, a topic that is front and centre now that Guyana’s oil finds have put the country on the radar of overseas investors. Who benefits from unchecked foreign investments? What do investors sometimes think of countries like Guyana and their leadership? Because life is not linear, there are themes I bring in global issues related to entrepreneurship; human and drug trafficking; race, gender and sexual orientation discrimination; corporate politics; coping with the cultural differences among people of African descent.

But most of all, Guyanese can relate to the characters, because we define ourselves according to our most outstanding traits or our most memorable action. Hence, such characters as Lebba Lip, Wicket-Down, the security guard at Pegasus Hotel, the Guyanese doorman at the luxury residence in New York City, the small-island security guard at the Wall Street firm. In terms of geography, Guyanese readers get to experience Marseilles, Paris and New York from my first-hand knowledge.

What are the biggest messages that are incorporated into this book?

Three of the biggest messages reinforced in the book are:

* It is the duty of leaders of developing countries like Guyana to negotiate and carefully vet foreign investment contracts in order to secure the maximum benefit of their countries and their people for generations to come. Leaders should learn to trust and engage the expertise of their local citizens and overseas diaspora.

* Self-reliance – personal and national, which does not preclude strategic partnerships and collaborations. Hillel, the Jewish religious leader and one of the most important figures in Jewish history, said, “If I’m not for me, who is? And if not now, when?”

* Love shows up where you never dreamed it would.

What would you say to other Guyanese writers who are looking for avenues for their work to get published in a larger market?

It’s so tough these days to be published via the big established houses in large markets such as the United States that small, independent presses and self-publishing platforms are proliferating in these markets.

While those are viable options, writers still have to invest in professional copy editors, proof readers, graphic artists and layout editors to put the best, cleanest, most visually attractive product on the market. Publishers big and small like to know that the writer already has a following, be it in his or her home market, in his or her professional field, or via a blog or social media. A good strategy is to make your name in your own small market and leverage that in approaching a large-market publisher.

Big publishing houses and some of the more established smaller ones will only deal with the writer’s agent. There are several directories of literary agents. The most reputable ones in the US are Writers Digest Guide to Literary Agents

(http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/2017-guide-literary-agents-57-reasons-buy-giveaway-contest) and Publishers Weekly Literary Agents List (https://www.pw.org/literary_agents). Akashic Books (http://www.akashicbooks.com) publishes lots of Caribbean writers.

The writer has to approach publishing as an entrepreneur. That means studying trends in the market you’re targeting to know who best to approach with your manuscript and how best to do so. Even after publication – no matter who publishes your work – the writer has to take on the responsibility of marketing the book to boost sales.

Given that you are stationed abroad, how connected are you with the challenges youth face in Guyana with regard to unemployment and other issues and how relevant to Guyana is the information that you will be providing?

Youth unemployment is a global dilemma, even in a country as developed as the United States, where I have lived for more than half of my life. Being stationed abroad does not mean you are divorced from your country of birth. I was a member of the feasibility study team for the establishment of the School of Entrepreneurship, Business and Innovation (SEBI) at the University of Guyana, and during my time in Guyana in that capacity, I was privileged to learn a great deal from observations and interactions with Guyanese in both the public and private sectors, as well as with young people, including those in my own family who still live here.

Moreover, unemployment and other challenges young people face are trends I follow in my work as an author and journalist focusing on business, entrepreneurship, and economic development with its attendant social consequences. While it is true that youth in Guyana may have unique issues to deal with, they have more in common with youth around the world than they realise. I spent several years in Africa as a high school teacher, specifically in Uganda and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that brought me into intimate contact with youth in a socio-economic situation not unlike that of Guyana today.

I have witnessed first-hand the dilemma of youth in other African countries, as well as in Asia, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. I travelled to Russia in the 1990s when it was beginning to emerge from a purely socialist construct – a confounding period for young men and women at the time. So, in spite of the uniqueness of Guyana, there are certain universal truths that I have learned that are relevant to Guyana.

In light of the theme “After Graduation What’s Next: Preparing Our Youth For A Successful Future” and given your chosen topic that you will be presenting on, what do you believe are the most important steps for young people to take in order to find worthwhile careers?

When it comes to career, I prefer to use the term “choose” instead of “find”, the first being a deliberate, informed, strategic action on your part; the latter being dependent on luck or on someone else’s largesse. That said, it’s of the utmost importance for a young person to first and foremost to take stock of himself or herself before deciding on a career that will prove worthwhile. Taking stock of yourself means getting to know who you really are – what kind of person are you?

What are your likes and dislikes? How do you see yourself? How would you describe yourself? What kind of people, what kind of activities put a big smile on your face? What is your inventory of skills? And by skills, I mean both hard skills and soft skills. Defining these two and identifying them is what I will focus on in my presentation at the BHS Student Conference. Too often we ignore this self-assessment step when transitioning from classroom to career, or from one stage of life to another. But if you don’t know yourself, how can you make life choices that bring out the best in you and that work to your maximum benefit?

There is often the struggle between just getting a job or making a career- which is often times connected with balancing logic with passion, what would be your advice for young people who may want to follow their passion but are being pressured to be “responsible in order to earn a living instead?

Some people do earn a living, sometimes even a comfortable living, when they follow their passion. [But sometimes] that tension often exists between the need or pressure to find a job and the pursuit of a career that is in sync with your passion. To those who find themselves in this situation, I say this: Once you are sure that you have identified your true passion, find a job in the field that is related to your passion, work hard at it so that you excel and move up, acquiring as much knowledge and as many influential contacts as possible along the way, and building a reputation in the field – as well as some savings – until you can ditch the job and operate as an independent if that is your wish.

Passion is just that. It’s innate. Giving it life, putting it into revenue-generating action requires skill, knowledge and strategy. Those are learned. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a job in a field that you are passionate about.

As a woman of colour who has significant achievements under her belt, what would you say to Guyanese women who are aspiring along similar paths as yours and are seeking to find a “strong enough voice” to get there?

These are some of the things I discuss with women in my workshop titled, “My Fabulous Me!”
·      The voice is you. Set out a vision for yourself and learn to articulate it.
·      Self assess often. Take stock of your accomplishments, even little ones, along your life journey. You don’t realise how much you have done until you self-assess. This builds self-love, confidence, self-esteem, all of which strengthen your voice.
·      Discard mental/psychological baggage. It weighs you down. Face it, forgive yourself and move on.
·      Surround yourself with positive, uplifting people.
·      Study role models – women who are where you want to be, doing the kinds of things you want to do.
·      Stay abreast of developments in your chosen field.
·      Draw on the strength of your lineage. There are women and men in your family tree who have overcome tremendous obstacles. They’re in your DNA. Find them. Talk to the elders in your family about them.

I found out that my maternal grandfather was a bookbinder at one time. I always picture my grandfather, perhaps wondering as he worked if anyone in his family would ever write a book. So I write books now, right? I had already published when I found that out about him, but it gave me a lift. It connected that aspect of me to someone in my family line. I wasn’t an aberration. [It was] just dipping into the DNA. It felt so good.

·      Find a mentor, someone whom you can trust and who has the connections to help you to get to where you want to go.
·       Stick with the vision, make the plan, execute. Try to do even one little thing every day toward your goal. One-one dutty build damn.
·       Stay healthy. Drink lots of water. Exercise. I practice and teach Tai Chi, Zumba, and Trim Brulée, which is a workout programme I developed that combines cardio, balance, and stretching exercises based on Tai Chi and Qi Gong.
·      Adhere to the eight principles of Black Belt excellence.
·      Stick with the vision, make a plan, execute, trust your God.

Rosalind said that The Guyana Contract is a product of personal experiences, first-hand and shared observations, and research. The book is dedicated to her classmates at the Bishops’ High School as a way of showing them all that she had learned since she left the school and migrated while in Fourth Form. The author said that she did not obliterate memories of the school and of Guyana because she migrated. Rosalind expressed excitement about returning home to address the students at her alma mater and to launch her book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
McLymont, an award-winning journalist, is the executive editor of The Network Journal and CEO and publisher of AfricaStrictlyBusiness.com. A former managing editor of The Journal of Commerce (Knight Ridder; Economist Group), she is the author of the groundbreaking “rebranding Africa” novel, Middle Ground, and of the nonfiction title, Africa Strictly Business: The Steady March to Prosperity.

She is a graduate of The City College of New York and New York University, with a Certificate in Spanish Language and Literature from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. A past European Union Fellow, she taught for several years in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo; served as an entrepreneurship development expert for the United Nations Development Program’s Africa Bureau; worked with women entrepreneurs in Russia through the Alliance of Russian and American Women; and served two terms on the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Born in Guyana, she lives in New York with her husband.