This Tuesday December 16, 2014 is the 105th birthday of Edgar Austin Mittelholzer (1909-65), standard-bearer for Guyanese and West Indian literature. He is highly celebrated for several reasons, as one of the pillars of the literature and a pioneer in its establishment.
For this, the Guyanese nation honours his memory and achievements with a literary/intellectual monument – the annual Edgar Mittelholzer Lecture Series staged by the Department of Culture in the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport. The 2014 Mittelholzer Lecturer was Dr Juanita Cox Westmaas, currently the leading authority on the life and work of this novelist. The lecture was delivered at the Theatre Guild on November 19 and played upon some of the writer’s peculiar characteristics in her punning title, ‘Edgar Mittelholzer’s Creative Genes(is) and the Geni(us) behind it.’ This man of many idiosyncracies has been renowned and renounced for his deliberations on sex as much as for religion and the supernatural/magical, and Juanita Cox focused on religion in her presentation.
The title reveals the wit of the lecturer as much as that of the novelist. Mittelholzer was certainly possessed of extraordinary creative “genes”, the root and genesis of his prolific and talented career. Creative writing was so much a part of him that his perseverance to be a professional writer is legendary. Religion was very important to his work and thought, thus “Genes(is)” speaks to both his creative beginnings and his treatment of Christianity – hence the biblical reference to the