Pa­per Based Book­shop hosts its first Evening of Tea and Read­ings on Sat­ur­day at 5.30 pm at the Ho­tel Nor­mandie, fea­tur­ing a cross-sec­tion of new­ly pub­lished works of fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and po­et­ry.

Richard Cha­ran, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and mul­ti­me­dia ed­i­tor with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work, will present from The Vil­lage of One (Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers), which ex­plores T&T’s his­to­ry through its oft-for­got­ten places, in­di­vid­u­als, and sub­merged nar­ra­tives.

Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed de­scribed the hall­marks of the work as “the en­gag­ing nar­ra­tive style, the an­a­lyt­i­cal depth, the jour­nal­ist’s in­stinct and the com­pelling prose”, say­ing “each es­say draws you deep­er and deep­er in­to as­pects of this twin-is­land’s di­verse cul­ture that he has un­cov­ered, some of them de­ter­mined­ly re­dress­ing his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry”.

Ryan Ba­choo, mul­ti­me­dia jour­nal­ist for the past 15 years, makes his Tea and Read­ings de­but with his first nov­el, An Un­end­ing Search, a poignant sto­ry of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion against harsh odds in South Trinidad’s 1970s.

Ba­choo ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the up­com­ing event, say­ing, “I’m tru­ly ho­n­oured to be in­vit­ed to Pa­per Based Book­shop’s Evening of Tea and Read­ings. It’s a space where words come alive and sto­ries find a home among kin­dred spir­its. I’m look­ing for­ward to shar­ing my work and con­nect­ing with fel­low lovers of lit­er­a­ture over a warm cup and mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion.”

Anu Lakhan, ed­i­to­r­i­al con­sul­tant and colum­nist, will read from her high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed de­but full-length po­et­ry col­lec­tion, The Prop­er Care of Knives (Ar­gotiers Press).

In his re­view of the col­lec­tion, An­dre Ba­goo praised the work as “lu­mi­nous and mov­ing”.

Her­self no stranger to the Pa­per Based podi­um, Ce­leste Mo­hammed will read from her re­cent­ly-re­leased sopho­more nov­el-in-sto­ries, Ever Since We Small (Jacaran­da Press). Mo­hammed, win­ner of the 2022 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture, sig­nalled the im­por­tance of this par­tic­u­lar event to her, say­ing, “Read­ing at a Pa­per Based event al­ways feels like a home­com­ing. This book­shop has sup­port­ed my work from the very be­gin­ning, and I’m es­pe­cial­ly glad to re­turn with Ever Since We Small, a book shaped in part by the fear­less writ­ing of Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan, a mem­ber of the Pa­per Based fam­i­ly.”

RSA Gar­cia, Neb­u­la and Stur­geon Award-win­ning writer of spec­u­la­tive fic­tion, rounds out the five speak­ers: she will present from her nov­el The Night­ward (Harp­er Voy­ager), a work en­com­pass­ing women-war­rior ma­gi­cians, high fan­ta­sy in­flect­ed by Caribbean mythol­o­gy, and a child queen-to-be on the run.

Fel­low Caribbean spec­u­la­tive fic­tion au­thor Pre­mee Mo­hammed praised the nov­el, herald­ing it as “a com­plex ta­pes­try of myth, loy­al­ty, his­to­ry, and pow­er”.