N.D.Williams’ Books

Today my friend Wyck Williams sent me a review of Jan Carew’s Wild Coast. As I read about the location on the Corentyne my mind wandered back in time to the year 1951.

My mother and father had gone on six month’s vacation(they called it long leave in those colonial days). Travelling through the islands on one of the  Lady Boats,they had left their four children in Phillipi,Corentyne with dad’s sister,Ada.



I went to school at  Wellington Park  in Tarlogie.



I have fond memories of spending summer holidays (or August holidays as we used to say then) on the Corentyne. Really it was a few villages that had the bulk of the Drepaul clan:Kilmarnock,Phillipi,Cromarty,Eversham.



My grandfather trained horses and ran a farm. A huge event was the August Monday race meeting in Port  Moraunt.



We went in donkey carts to the wells to get water. We walked the village and went from home to home  getting meals and being treated like royaly because we were from ‘town’.



We rode some buses for free because Aunt Mary’s husband was in charge of the bus.


M.M.D.





[Guyana]

Today I found  web pages about a Caribbean Born Canadian Author Nalo Hopkinson. While I was in the UK in 2003 someone had mentioned that she was the daughter of Caribbean writer and actor Slade Hopkinson.

Reading her bio and her mention of his poem ‘ Mad Woman of Papine” brought back memories of UWI and Jamaica 1962-1965.



Her father Slade Hopkinson was a formidable actor. I still remember his performance of Othello (with Bill Carr as Iago) at the Urusiline Convent in the 1970’s. It was a University of Guyana production. I had arrived very early for the play and I met an old woman who had a hat on and was dressed in white as if for church. She told me her daughter was in the play. She had never been to one of these plays,she said.She and I sat in the front row. She had an umbrella. As the play progressed she got so enthralled that I feared she would reach out and strike Bill Carr with her umbrella.



Afterwards she was shaking with anger at how terrible Iago was. When I mentioned Othello,her eyes lit up.



“What a noble fellow”,she said, ” how he could be so stupid to trust that scamp Iago I don’t know”



” But that’s how good people are,they don’t see the bad in others”



Years later when I was teaching in Jamaica,the introduction to my edition of ” Othello”mentioned that once in the a performance in the wild west a member of the audience actually shot dead the actor playing Iago.



I remember vividly  Slade Hopkinson’s play ” Spawning of the Eeels”. It brought home to me the visceral hostility some Guyanese feel about our hintherland.



Somewhere back in Guyana  among my books are copies of Slade’s poems.

M.M.D


[Guyana]

Recent reports of riots in the Muslim world over the alleged disrespect shown to the Holy Koran by US interrogators in Guantanamo base as reported by Newsweek prompts me to write this piece.

In today’s world of instant communication where even small events can be amplified by the internet, TV and all the usual traditional media we have to be aware of what is important to other cultures. Certain world centres like London,Paris ,New York, Miami,Toronto where almost every country on earth is represented are filtering points for any cultural insult.

So even though it is tempting for skilled interrogators to use cultural affronts to break down the belief systems of others they must be aware that if this gets out it becomes even if untrue or half true like a thousand roadside bombs waiting to be detonated against anyone from the culture that allegedly perpetrated it.

For anyone who wants to get an understanding of the minefield we are in I heartily recommend a novel wriiten by my friend N.D. Williams–’Ah Mikhail,O Fidel’. Set in the early 1990’s in a Brooklyn Public school in New York it graphically illustrates the post 9/11 complexities.When we enter William’s depiction of the inner city we feel the dizzying tailspin of a super power descending into chaos.

Before we can solve the problems of today we need awareness. We cannot deal with multi cultural issues with a uniculural mindset. Writers like Williams who grew up in multi-cultural societies have insights which came give us the critical responses we need now.



” Ah,Mikhail,O Fidel”



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