A well-earned 100th birthday

Sidney Poitier in a scene from the film To Sir With Love

In another ten days, on June 27, 2012, one of Guyana’s celebrated writers will be 100 years old. The novelist, scientist, author, diplomat and Literary Fellow known as ‘E R Braithwaite,’ was born Edward Ricardo Braithwaite in Guyana on June 27, 1912 and is now living in the USA. The National Library in Georgetown, Guyana has devoted the month of June to a celebration of him and launched this month of activities on June 1, last.

The library had already paid public attention to Braithwaite in recent times with a programme of critical presentations, readings and dramatisations during which a telephone call to him was beamed live to the audience.  He was interviewed by playwright and TV documentalist Francis Quamina Farrier. That was a timely recognition and,