Shereen Ali

The ac­com­plished writer Earl Lovelace, who cel­e­brates his 80th birth­day this year, will be ho­n­oured next week in To­ba­go at the Bo­cas Lit Fest, which takes place from Ju­ly 9 to Ju­ly 11 at the Scar­bor­ough Li­brary at Gar­den Side Street.The lit­er­ary fes­ti­val is wel­com­ing all vis­i­tors, and will fea­ture read­ings, spo­ken word events, sto­ry­telling, work­shops for bud­ding writ­ers, films and some live­ly dis­cus­sions. All events are free, ex­cept for the writ­ers' work­shops.

Bo­cas Lit Fest's di­rec­tor Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown thought it fit­ting to pay trib­ute to Earl Lovelace: "We want to mark his achieve­ments in this spe­cial year."Earl Lovelace is a writer of nov­els, plays and short sto­ries, and is cel­e­brat­ed for his flu­id, orig­i­nal sto­ry­telling, mem­o­rably vivid char­ac­ters, and his cel­e­bra­tion of cre­ole (is­land-born) lan­guage. His style can range from wild satire to nu­anced char­ac­ter stud­ies to ex­tem­pore-styled, lyri­cal stream-of-con­scious­ness flights of lan­guage, to di­rect po­lit­i­cal analy­sis. His writ­ing eas­i­ly nav­i­gates dif­fer­ent reg­is­ters of lan­guage.

Lovelace wrote the nov­els While Gods Are Falling (1965), The School­mas­ter (1968), The Drag­on Can't Dance (1979), The Wine of As­ton­ish­ment (1983), the Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers' Prize-win­ning Salt (1997), and Is Just a Movie (2011), as well as vol­umes of short fic­tion, plays and es­says. This writer has won many awards, in­clud­ing a 1980 Guggen­heim fel­low­ship, a 1988 Cha­co­nia Gold Medal from the T&T gov­ern­ment, a 2002 hon­orary doc­tor­ate from UWI, and the 2012 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture.

Among his many themes, Lovelace's works of­ten raise ques­tions about the na­ture of man­hood, the need for things to be­lieve in, and the search for self­hood, mean­ing, and a sense of be­long­ing in a frac­tured West In­di­an en­vi­ron­ment. West In­di­an lec­tur­er and lit­er­ary crit­ic Ken­neth Ram­c­hand has not­ed that Lovelace's themes al­so in­clude the need to ad­dress con­di­tions that pro­duce ur­ban vi­o­lence; the idea of com­mu­ni­ty as fam­i­ly; the birth of de­sire and ma­te­ri­al­ism; the cre­ativ­i­ty of or­di­nary peo­ple; and the alien­ation of a bar­ren mid­dle-class from the en­dur­ing poor (Ram­c­hand, Caribbean Beat, 1999).

Born in the sea­side vil­lage of To­co in 1935, Lovelace spent his child­hood in To­ba­go and Port-of-Spain. His first job was, briefly, with the Trinidad Guardian news­pa­per as a proof­read­er (1953-54)–a time dur­ing which, as Ram­c­hand wrote, "...he be­gan study­ing the life that flows down like rivers from the hills: 'On these hills there, it is not on­ly pover­ty.

It is dis­or­der; it is crime; it is a kind of fear, and a way of think­ing; it is as if there is a nar­row mean­ing to life, as if life has no sig­nif­i­cance be­yond the pri­ma­ry strug­gles for a bed to sleep in, some­thing to qui­et the in­testines and mo­ments of sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion–in­deed it is as if all the Gods have fall­en and there is noth­ing to wor­ship at, and man is left on­ly bare bones and naked pas­sions.'" (Caribbean Beat, 1999). But at the same time, Lovelace al­so saw in the city, peo­ple's ir­re­press­ible cre­ativ­i­ty and beau­ty, ris­ing in ex­pres­sions of Car­ni­val, ca­lyp­so and steel­pan.

Lovelace lat­er moved to the coun­try­side, to Va­len­cia as a for­est ranger and then to Rio Claro as an agri­cul­tur­al of­fi­cer.There he ex­pe­ri­enced the com­mu­ni­ty spir­it of vil­lage life and the beau­ty of life close to na­ture, sur­round­ed by sounds of rivers and forests.He gained an in­ti­mate knowl­edge of rur­al Trinidad that lat­er in­formed many as­pects of his fic­tion. Lovelace be­gan writ­ing while in Va­len­cia.

Lovelace stud­ied at Howard Uni­ver­si­ty, Wash­ing­ton, DC in 1966-67, and in 1974 he re­ceived an MA in Eng­lish from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty, Bal­ti­more, Mary­land. He lec­tured in lit­er­a­ture and cre­ative writ­ing at UWI, St Au­gus­tine from 1977 to 1987, and has worked as a vis­it­ing nov­el­ist and writer in res­i­dence at sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties abroad.

Fes­ti­val high­lights

"We in To­ba­go are de­light­ed to be able to cel­e­brate the 80th birth­day of Earl Lovelace who has a long as­so­ci­a­tion with To­ba­go," said Deb­o­rah Moore Mig­gins, di­rec­tor of the To­ba­go Word Fes­ti­val, which to­geth­er with the To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild, are coor­gan­is­ers of the To­ba­go NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest.

The fes­ti­val kicks off on Ju­ly 9, from 5 to 9 pm with film screen­ings by and about Lovelace, in­clud­ing George and the Bi­cy­cle Pump (2000, 13 mins, pro­duced by Asha Lovelace), Joe­bell and Amer­i­ca (2004, 83 mins, pro­duced by Asha Lovelace), and the doc­u­men­tary, A Writer In His Space (2014, 55 min­utes, pro­duced by Fun­so Aiye­ji­na).

On Fri­day, Ju­ly 10, mem­bers of the To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild, al­so fes­ti­val part­ners, will pay trib­ute with their read­ings of Lovelace's work, fol­lowed by a con­ver­sa­tion fea­tur­ing Earl Lovelace with James Arm­strong. Vis­i­tors are wel­come to bring along their books for au­thor au­to­graphs.

Bo­cas Lit Fest or­gan­is­ers say an­oth­er high­light of the fes­ti­val is the ap­pear­ance of win­ners of var­i­ous 2015 lit­er­ary awards, in­clud­ing Vladimir Lu­cien from St Lu­cia, who won the 2015 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture based on his de­but col­lec­tion Sound­ing Ground. Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing will be Kevin Jared Ho­sein (Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize win­ner), and Danielle Boodoo For­tun� (Hol­lick Ar­von Prize win­ner).

Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 11 brings a full pro­gramme of sto­ry­telling, cre­ative writ­ing work­shops, open-mic, au­thors' read­ings, stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tions and mu­sic at the Scar­bor­ough Li­brary, all free. There will even be prizes for the best sto­ry­tellers in the au­di­ence. And there will be a live­ly dis­cus­sion–Where Has Ca­lyp­so Gone?–fea­tur­ing George Lea­cock (Ra­dio Tam­brin), Ains­ley King (Tu­co), writer Earl Lovelace, and ca­lyp­son­ian/ac­tivist Opuku Ware, at 5.15 pm on Sat­ur­day.

The fes­ti­val con­cludes with a free Spo­ken Word Con­cert at 7 pm on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 11, that in­cludes Ak­ile Wal­lace, win­ner of the 2015 First Cit­i­zens-spon­sored Na­tion­al Po­et­ry Slam prize; run­ner-up Kleon McPher­son; Crys­tal Skeete, win­ner of the 2013 Slam; Michael Lo­gie, win­ner of the 2015 Courts Bo­cas Speak Out In­ter­col; and a host of To­ba­go per­for­mance po­ets.

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T is ti­tle spon­sor of the To­ba­go NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest. The work of the Bo­cas Lit Fest is al­so sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, UWI, and the Massy Foun­da­tion.

�2 More in­fo: www.bo­caslit­fest.com