While Char­lie King Junc­tion in Fyz­abad South Trinidad was re­liv­ing the labour strug­gles of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry that pre­ced­ed In­de­pen­dence, am­bas­sadors, diplo­mats, their spous­es and oth­er en­thu­si­asts en­joyed a stim­u­lat­ing CiT­Tyscape LiT­Tour–Jour­ney Through the Land­scapes of Fic­tion of Trinidad–Land­scapes of Fic­tion from Trinidad and To­ba­go by Kris Ram­per­sad.

The tour, which be­gan at the La­dy Young Road, cir­cum­vent­ed through Barataria, the Beetham, Port-of-Spain and the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah to give a rare glimpse of the is­land and its cap­i­tal through the eyes of fic­tion writ­ers and fic­tion­al char­ac­ters.

The group ex­plored the city land­scapes, mind­scapes, in­sti­tu­tions, fes­ti­vals, and the is­land's his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, econ­o­my, cul­ture and so­ci­ety from the per­spec­tives of a range of writ­ers and thinkers from as ear­ly as 1595 to present day.

The tour cov­ered a range of fic­tion­al vi­sion and works of writ­ers as Samuel Selvon, Lawrence Scott, CLR James, Al­fred Mendes, Michael An­tho­ny, James Isa­iah Bood­hoo, Earl Lovelace, VS Naipaul, Derek Wal­cott, Ismith Khan, Lak­sh­mi Per­saud-See­taram and many of the some 60 writ­ers and more than 100 works rep­re­sent­ed in LiTTscapes.

Among those who par­tic­i­pat­ed were Ex­cel­len­cies, Am­bas­sador of Japan Yoshi­masa Tezu­ka and Mrs Tezu­ka; Am­bas­sador of the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea Wonkun Hwang and Mrs Kum­dan Hwang; Jan Karls­son spouse of the am­bas­sador of the Nether­lands; Anke Kessler, spouse of the am­bas­sador of Chile; mem­bers of Al­liance Fran­cais, mu­si­cians Katy Gain­ham and Eleanor Ryan; Ben Gilbert, son of the se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to the UN De­part­ment of Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty for this re­gion; artist Wendy Nanan and Al­liance Fran­cais' Marie and Frank Ab­dul­lah.

The tour was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by au­thor and ed­u­ca­tor in Caribbean lit­er­a­ture, cul­ture and her­itage, Dr Kris Ram­per­sad in con­junc­tion with the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion Know Your Coun­try Tours.

Cus­tom­made LiT­Tours by re­quest on any theme, sub­ject, au­thor or dis­trict through e-mail lol­leaves@gmail.com. For de­tails see www.kris-ram­per­sad.blogspot.com.

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