All the processes and events connected to the Guyana Prize for Literature 2023 concluded on May 3, when the curtains closed on the 2024 Literary Festival. There were multiple sessions of performance, exhibitions, discussions and readings, but the main event was the Awards Presentation Ceremony at which the Prime Minister Hon. Mark Phillips, standing in for the President, handed out the awards to the Prize Winners in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Non-Fiction and the Youth Awards.
In significant contrast to previous trends, locally resident writers dominated the awards. Of the six major Prizes, only two went to overseas based writers – the Guyana Prize for Drama and the Prize for the Best First Book of Poetry (the Youth awards are only available to local residents). Most of the second and third place winners are overseas.
Two writers in 2023 were first time winners (Fiction and Non-Fiction), while in Poetry and Drama the winners have had multiple awards. One of the Youth winners also had a prize last year.
FICTION
Winner of the 2023 Guyana Prize for Fiction was Michael Jordan for his second novel The Girl in the Pink Pleated Skirt. For the first time in the history of the Prize a manuscript was winning a major award. Jordan is well known in Guyana as a journalist, whose first novel, Kamarang (2022) was shortlisted in 2022. This was also the first time a popular genre novel – crime fiction – was winning the Prize. The Jury Chairman, Funso Aiyejina, explained that Jordan’s victory was emphatic – his novel, despite its own limitations, was far superior to all others in the field, which trailed considerably behind it. Below is the Jury’s citation.
The Girl in the Pink Pleated Skirt by Michael Jordan
The first-person narrator of this novel is emotionally and mentally invested. He combines the art of investigative journalism with the skills of a passionate amateur detective to unravel the political and police corruption that had caused the official investigations of the horrific murders of young Guyanese girls to go cold. In having the courage and folly to follow the clues to their logical conclusion, the narrator fulfils his life-long promise to unmask the identity of the person behind the dastardly murder of the girl in the pink pleated skirt. The writing is confident, the dialogue is appropriately modulated to convey Guyanese urban culture, and the characters, both the incidental and central, come alive in the orchestrating hand of Michael Jordan.
Second Place: Rage from the Backwaters by Somnauth Narine
Third Place : Slippery Ochro by Kennard Ramphal
NON – FICTION
The 2023 Guyana Prize for Non-Fiction was awarded to Dr Estherine G. H. Adams for her historical work The Few Among the Many: Women’s Labour in British Guiana’s Jails, 1838-1917 , 2023. Dr. Adams is a historian and Head of the Department of History and Caribbean Studies at the University of Guyana. This is her first full-length work, based on research conducted over a number of years at UG and in collaboration with others, including Dr Mellissa Ifill, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at UG. Chairman of the Jury Edward Greene had this to say in the Jury’s citation.
The core argument of Estherine Adams’ book is that the prison in British Guiana in the period after Emancipation in 1838 was fundamentally a tool for controlling the labour of the non-white population of the colony. She writes that “the local government and the plantocracy leveraged the expansion of the colony’s prisons not to control crime, per se, but to control labour.” Both freed Africans and indentured labourers were subject to the whims of magistrates who were ready to convict and collaborate with the plantocracy in order to create a prison population to serve as a source of unpaid and enforced labour. Adams shows that women inmates were significant contributors to the plantation economy in this way, though their forced work has been almost completely unrecorded by modern historians. Adams’ research is comprehensive and her book will be the main text on the subject of the incarceration of women in British Guiana, essential to all future researchers. It is both original and meticulously documented.
Second Place: Baytoram Ramharack, A Powerful Indian Voice: Alice Bhagwandai Singh, Reflections on her Work in Guyana, 2023
Third Place: Joanne Collins-Gonsalves, Iris De Freitas Brazao: Legal Luminary and Trailblazer, Publishing Inc. Alberta, Canada, 2023.
Nesha Z. Haniff, The Pedagogy of Action: Small Axe Fall Big Tree , Pelgrave McMillan Books, Singapore, 2022
POETRY
The Guyana Prize for Poetry 2023 was awarded to Ian McDonald for his collection Not Quite Without A Moon, Peepal Tree Press, 2023. McDonald, who has won this Prize more than once is an exceptionally prolific writer of poetry and non-fiction, has published several collections of poetry and received the third place in Non-Fiction in the Guyana Prize last year. Below is the citation released by the Poetry Jury Chairman Evelyn O’Callaghan.
Another late work by a poet still on top of his craft. The collection is moving and varied, a strong and well-rendered selection of writing. The poems are exquisite and poignant – piercing through time to cherished memories of his childhood and strong sense of belonging to Guyana (“Place of worship”, “Forest at Night”). There is something wondrous in the way McDonald manages to mine the mundane, the everyday and find glory in it.
Some of the simple portraits of ordinary Guyanese men and women (cricket fans and their commentaries, “Mrs Mathews” and her love of poetry, sugar workers in a rumshop discussing what they will use their bonuses to buy) evoke deep emotion in the reader, as do the matter-of-fact thoughts on aging and the defiant assertion of joy, friendships, beauty and above all, love.
Second Place : Ruth Osman for All Made of Longing, Bamboo Talk Press
Third Place : Sasenarine Persaud for Mattress Makers Mawenzi House Publishers
FIRST BOOK OF POETRY
The award of the Best First Book of Poetry was presented to Ruth Osman for her first published collection All Made of Longing. She is stage performer of Spoken Word Poetry and music who lives in Trinidad and Tobago.
DRAMA
The 2023 Winner of the Guyana Prize for Drama is Harold A. Bascom for his play Unfounded (2023). Bascom had a successful career in Guyana as a playwright, director, producer and visual artist before relocating to the USA where he now lives. He has won the Guyana Prize on previous occasions and was also a winner of the Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award. Jury Chairman Rawle Gibbons issued the following citation.
A melodrama with an active plot that seeks to tackle issues of national concern. The plot is well-developed, the action engaging and characters interesting. The action of this play is set in the context of: a) rumors of an imminent invasion of the country by a hostile neighboring state; b) the experience of frequent electricity blackouts and c) historical ethnic divisions, particularly between Indians and Africans in the country. The play asks the question whether the crisis of invasion can bring about national unity?
In its approach to this question, we believe the play needs a better balance of responsibility between the races and to avoid the reinforcement of stereotypes. To its credit, however, the play shows the positive outcome and possibility of racial integration. The story signals hope in racial unity as consistent with the courage of personal choice. The action tells us, further, there is no hope for national unity or even personal evolution without enduring the pain of self-reckoning.
Second Place : With A Kiss by Staphan Estick.
Third Place : Requiem for the Living by Jamal La Rose.
THE YOUTH AWARD
The Youth Awards were announced for Poetry and Short Story and presented by Minister of Culture Charles Ramson. Significantly, last year’s winner Samir Mohammed was once again among the awardees this year, but he was only allowed a third prize in poetry while no award for short story was made to the girls. Chairman of the Jury explained that that was because of many deficiencies in the submitted works.
BEST SHORT STORY (BOYS)
Samir Mohammed, for “The Lighthouse at the Bottom of the Sea”
BEST POETRY (BOYS)
THIRD PLACE : Samir Mohammed for “Shadows in the Sand”
BEST SHORT STORY (GIRLS)
NO AWARD
BEST POETRY (GIRLS)
Reneka Anand for “Lotus Flower Story: The Woman”
Second Place: Angel Moore for “Yellow Cheese Pencil for a Vegan Artist”
“Untold Stories of An Artist”
