By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2024

The world is what it is.

Having stolen one of Vidia Naipaul’s more thought-provoking opening phrases, frankly I don’t feel guilty. I do not believe I stole anything from VS. I’m sure he has quoted or fallen back on many a Trinidadian writer for original material to start his considerable portfolio of novels that made him famous. “The world is what it is” is as powerful a line as Dante Alighieri’s “Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here” in his 14th-century narrative poem, “The Divine Comedy”.

Novels by Trinidadians and Tobagonians or even if I spread to the wider Caribbean remain unread by most avid readers from this region. I do not recall now which of Naipaul’s early books were set in the Caribbean or which went on to be successful, but I was prodded into writing about this based on the confluence that I faced last weekend.

I visited with my granddaughter, Lara, last week and was presented with quite a collection of books that she selected for her reading pleasure. None among those of course were any Caribbean writers. I was not surprised by that. For me, a near cardinal sin, for her generation and two more ahead of her. No big thing, quite literally.

Lara is 14 going on 15, so included in those who in my view have little regard or even respect for local and Caribbean writers, are those up to 50 years old, and that is being generous. I realise my previous statement reeks of writers’ arrogance, but those who are so categorised see the label as a badge of pride.

We are what we are because we don’t give a damn about who says what about us or who refuses to buy our offerings to a region with such richness in its literature if we were to face off with any other region, we’d beat them like a steelpan.

Years before Naipaul’s first publication was the likes of Sam Selvon’s A Brighter Sun, which would later make it into the classroom as a literature offering. And, who remembers CLR James’ Minty Alley, upon which the local soap opera, Calabash Alley, starring the larger-than-life, Beulah, was based?

Then there was CLR’s The Black Jacobins, a historical novel respected globally for its compelling storyline of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Napoleon Bonaparte clashing on battlefields during the French Revolution and Haiti’s bid to become independent as far back as the turn of the 19th century.

Many such writers wrote extensively, works of fiction and non-fiction. There were also outstanding scholars based in islands such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cuba and here at home in little Trinidad. In retrospect, I could have pointed out to Lara, to add among her Khaled Hosseini and Ruta Sepetys, a sprinkling of Naipaul or Sam Selvon to start with; and later on as she matures, she will have a greater appreciation for the writings of CLR, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Neruda, a Nobel Prize winner from Chile.

There is need for the awakening of a huge pool of readers who will facilitate the expansion of publishing (I must here apologise to Clifford Narinesingh who patiently awaits my book-ending).

The arrival days ago of the floating Logos Hope book shop that boasts of thousands of editions of books offers an opportunity for local publishers and authors to negotiate with the owners to have their books showcased on this large platform.

If I may further arrogate onto myself, advice to writers of the calibre of Earl Lovelace, Merle Hodge, Kevin Baldeosingh, etc, they are overdue for another masterpiece offering to the reading public. Lovelace’s last release, as far as I am aware, was well received by the reading public. Baldeosingh’s book was not receiving the attention I think it deserves. It needs to take its rightful place amongst those books that tax the reader’s knowledge, and appreciation of historical science-fiction works that grip the reader to the very end of the novel, making them yearn for a sequel or even a trilogy, anything to prolong the life of Adam Avatar, the main character.

I suggest that our crime fighters from the top ranks of the various services as well as those at the political level who are engaged to achieve nothing at the end of another year may find that reading books can be rewarding to the writers, publishers and criminals.

You see, if we can get people who have little or nothing to do and much time on their hands to do it, they will find stories so gripping and appealing that they will have no time to fight wars in communities. When you bury your head in a good book or four, you barely have time to eat, far less commit crimes. Put books in the prisons. Make reading attractive to everyone.

Perhaps if would-be criminals read, they may be less inclined to committing crimes.