Sporting a full-color cover for the first time, the latest volume of The Caribbean Writer, an annual literary anthology published by the University of the Virgin Islands, is now in bookstores throughout the region. The playful Caribbean mermaid that adorns the cover is by Jean Booty, a Christiansted artist.
Inside, the volume celebrates two special birthdays: Derek Walcott, the Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright from St. Lucia, and Kamau Brathwaite, another award-winning poet from Barbados, who both turned 70 earlier this year. In observance of that, poets from all over the region have written poems and tributes to these two literary figures. Interviews with both men are also included, as is an excerpt of Brathwaite's historic speech at The Caribbean Writer's 10th Anniversary Literature Conference held on St. Croix in October 1996.
Volume 14 contains three personal essays, including one that tells of life in Frederiksted, St. Croix in the 1950s and another one that deals with the reality of incest.
A one-act play entitled "War" by St. Lucian playwright Cecil A. "Blazer" Williams is also included. This play will be produced at the Reichhold Center for the Arts on St. Thomas next year during its Reichhold Caribbean Repertory Theatre summer festival.
Fiction authors included are Marvin E. Williams of St. Croix, St. Thomas resident Davida R. Siwisa, and Justin Haynes of Trinidad and Tobago, among others. Poets include Opal Palmer Adisa, Kwame Dawes, Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming, Virgil Suarez, Cecil Gray, Howard A. Fergus, Fred D. Aguiar, and Patricia Gill.
The Caribbean Writer is currently available for sale at The Bookie, Kallaloo, Arabella's, Memories of St. Croix, the Whim Museum and The Divi Carina Bay Gift Shop on St. Croix; Tropical Memories and Dockside Bookshop on St. Thomas; Heritage Books and Arts on Tortola; as well as in both UVI bookstores. Copies can also be ordered directly from The Caribbean Writer's office by calling 692-4152 or emailing [email protected].