Sascha Wilson
Eminent author and historian Dr Michael Anthony was yesterday honoured with a citation from the San Fernando City Corporation for his contribution to the southern city.
Thanking San Fernando mayor Junia Regrello and the council for honouring him, Anthony, 90, credited San Fernando as the place where his path as a writer took flight.
He was speaking at a special segment at the Corporation´s Statutory Meeting during which he was honoured and awarded the citation.
The council also moved a motion tasking Anthony with writing a second book, in collaboration with other writers, about the history of San Fernando from 1900 to 2020. It will a continuation of his first book, Anaparima, which is about the history of San Fernando from 1595 to 1900.
In his brief remarks, Anthony gave an insight into how a boy from the rural village of Mayaro came to become one of the best authors in the Caribbean and why San Fernando has a special place in his heart.
“Whenever I come to San Fernando I always feel a bit special because one of the reasons I feel so special is that very early in my life an event took place that really made a profound difference to my life.”
He recalled that at age ten he was playing in his yard in Mayaro when he was approached by a man who asked him if he wanted to live in San Fernando. The man had a dilemma because his sick elderly mother lived in San Fernando and he wanted someone who could run errands for her.
When he asked him if he wanted to live at his house in San Fernando, Anthony agreed. “He spoke to my mother and she said, ´once you agree that he will go to school, I will allow him to go to San Fernando to live.”
Recalling the day he left his family on January 1, 1941, he could not explain how he felt.
He had never left Mayaro and he did want to part with his siblings, but he wanted to see San Fernando.
“It looked like a sort of country town but to me, it was the big city,” he said.
If someone had asked him at seven years old what he wanted to be, he would have said a writer or maybe a poet. Noting how fond memories of his childhood like him walking the beach on the way to school, would resurface whenever he visits San Fernando, Anthony said the main thing he would remember is that if there were no San Fernando he would not have been become a writer and accomplished all that he has in his life.
Anthony also advised young upcoming writers to never give up and be simple— don’t search for big words, don’t write as though you know everything about English.
In his tribute to Anthony, the Regrello said the Hummingbird Gold National Award recipient is greatly known for his work as a West Indian author of novels, short stories and travelogues about domestic life in Trinidad.
He recalled Anthony’s first novel, The Games Were Coming, was published in 1963 and since then he has continued with short collections as, Cricket in the Road (1973), The Chieftain´s Carnival and Other Stoties (1993) which were based on significant events in the country´s history.
