Dear Editor,
Mr Frederick Kissoon in his letter of December 8 asks a reasonable question – why did I give my papers to UWI in St Augustine and not to the University of Guyana or the National Archives?
As always in important decisions, this one arose out of a number of considerations:
* I have considered myself as being Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth and Guyanese by adoption but also West Indian by conviction. UWI is a vital West Indian institution.
* UWI awarded me an Honorary Doctorate and has kept in touch with me since that honour was given in 1997.
* Mr Kissoon writes that my literary standing “begins and ends” in Guyana but there is in fact a dimension beyond Guyana. Many poems and the novel The Humming-bird Tree have been inspired by things and people and scenes in Trinidad; poems of mine have for years appeared in journals and anthologies outside of Guyana; I edited Kyk-Over-Al for years – a magazine which the great founder AJ Seymour himself looked upon as a West Indian as well as a Guyanese journal; most of my books have been published outside Guyana; I have been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1970. I am extremely proud of the three Guyana Prize awards I have received and I am grateful indeed for Mr Kissoon’s pleasantly congratulatory description of me “standing tall” as a literary personality in Guyana, but I believe recognition of my writing has a dimension beyond Guyana.
* I was born in St Augustine – literally a few hundred yards from the UWI campus – and grew up there. I admit to a sentimental feeling of appropriateness that my papers should in the end be deposited there.
* UWI in St Augustine talked to me about depositing my papers in the Special Collections Division of their library and sent one of their staff to discuss with me and view my papers. I have been immensely impressed by the organisation, staff and protocols for dealing with the deposits at the UWI Library Special Collections Division. I do not believe, even with all the efforts being made, that Guyana has a matching facility.
I can understand Mr Kissoon, and others, wondering why I chose UWI in St Augustine as the place to deposit my papers. I can only say that I feel my papers have found an excellent home in a sister Caricom country where in due course there will be ready access for anybody, including West Indians and Guyanese, to consult if and when interested.
Yours faithfully,
Ian McDonald
