What is a Caribbean story? Are our people in the diaspora still Caribbean?

 Can stories about Caribbean people in the diaspora still be Caribbean?

After the blog on Nancy Drew (March 2), it might seem that I was overcome by the realization that Nancy Drew was still beloved.  I admit to being somewhat confused. What do I write next which is relevant? Has it all been for nothing? So perhaps it has taken this time to garner my thoughts. I can have no quarrel with Nancy Drew. I too loved her, and look how I turned out. My life has been about writing stories, our stories for our children.

And there is much more activity on the children’s book scene: young writers writing, young publishers publishing; Caribbean book prizes of substance now exist, including our Lignum Vitae Awards, which will consist of the revitalised Una Marson Award for adult writing, and Vic Reid Award for YA, and the brand new Jean D’Costa for children’s; and she is still alive. This is recognition indeed, as there has been the realisation of the need to divide the former children’s section into two categories. Book festivals abound here, and in the region at large. Talking Trees comes up this month (it alternates with Calabash) and I am delighted that it has  good corporate support. Moreover, there has been more corporate support for literacy and books through the purchase of local children’s books for leisure reading. These initiatives have been spearheaded by the new generation of writers and publishers. Reading Week, this  week, sees corporate sponsors providing for reading in schools. Some schools, on their own initiative, have asked for authors to come and read. What more could one ask? Well, more sales, but we might be getting there.

From the point of view of what to write next, some of us have also revisited the concept of quaint versus contemporary. And as we look at the books/stories from the developing world, which are recognized by the developed world – allowing for publishing opportunities and increased sales -  we see that quaint, or what is different, holds sway. And indeed, why not? If I’m reading about some other country far away from our region, I think I would want to know what’s different, what traditions and customs have created the situation in which the characters find themselves, and have made the characters behave in the way they do. (Does anybody know of a book set in the Seychelles or Mauritius? I just have a feeling that might be fascinating.) So if you are going to write a Caribbean children’s/YA story do you have to set it in the  Caribbean? What a question to ask. In truth, I never thought I’d ask it.

In search of an answer, let us see what this journey has been? I come from the group that produced the first truly Jamaican children’s stories to be put in schools as supplementary readers. We were bold even in the face of some opposition, but the Ministry of Education believed in that project and in us. We were bold because we had survived colonialism. Perhaps you would not understand unless you too had been there, to survive. We created stories set in our own environment, with children in the image of our people, using our own words. Bold indeed! We were the group that celebrated black is beautiful. Perhaps you would not understand unless you  too had been there, to celebrate. We became comfortable in our hair and our skin,  and in our island and region, and we dared to put them in children’s books. We dismissed Enid Blyton! 

And in our literature! We delighted in Naipaul, Selvon, and Mittleholzer and Carew, and later, Hodge, who knew exactly what colonialism had done to us. We almost felt as if we had discovered these writers, and indeed we had, because we had discovered ourselves through them. I was in Trinidad as a  presenter at a workshop when Selvon died, and Merle Hodge wrote in my own, original, old copy of Crick Crack Monkey, and I thought that I was a part of history. 

So we are bold enough to ask, what can we write? Should it be quaint or contemporary? Should writing for the Caribbean be set only in the Caribbean, or can it  be in the diaspora? Discovering the diaspora as a valid place for us to be, is akin to discovering ourselves when we were bold enough to recognize ourselves in books and create ourselves in books. I was therefore taken aback when an overseas writer said in an interview, giving advice to us, ‘You don’t have to write about somebody going to Toronto or New York for it to be important. Setting your stories right here in the Caribbean is important’ (paraphrased). And I thought, but we know that! We have survived colonialism, we know that black is beautiful because we signed on for that, and we know that we are in books because we put our protagonists there.

But what about migration, the enduring fabric of our lives? We all have family that has migrated. Do they have stories to tell? Marlene Nourbese Philip’s Harriet’s Daughter (YA set in Toronto) had a story to tell. Samuel Selvon’s  Lonely Londoners had a story to tell. What is contemporary? I think we must write about all the experiences of our people. We must be bold enough. Each writer must write the story each writer has to tell, even if not being at home in the region all the time or quaint, is not the place to be.

 

 

To be, or not to be . . .quaint: the back story

 

I’ve been meaning to write a blog about what Caribbean children’s literature is, or should be, or can be.  And yesterday I got a phone call which gave me new insight and made me realize that I could not put it off any longer.

When I run writing workshops, I always  point out to the participants that the target audience is a key aspect of writing. This usually applies to the differences in the  level of the material, the mechanics of writing  and perceived interests of the target audience. Essentially the writer can jump in passionately and write whatever catches his/ her fancy, but at some point, and usually this is before starting to write, the writer has to decide if the story is going to be in picture book/picture storybook format, or a chapter book or a young adult novel. The story the author wants  to tell often dictates the level. Most authors tend to write for a particular target audience; some can write for various levels. This would apply across the world of children’s’ writing.

We are all accustomed to European/Western children’s literature. For some decades now, however, developing countries/ex European colonies  have been trying to develop their own children’s literature, based on the psychological construct that seeing oneself in books and reading about one's own cultural environment contributes to a healthy self concept. One might ask if the reverse is therefore true.

It would seem that the rationale for producing local children’s literature must have been accepted by the people of the Caribbean by now. I and others have been on this bandwagon for the last 30  years at least; the Doctor Bird Reading Series, supplementary readers developed by the Ministry of Education here in Jamaica in the early 1980s, and for which I wrote, were to address this very need. The Jamaica Reading Association had already done some local short stories, and the Children’s Writers Circle sought to continue this by encouraging local writers to produce material. There were other authors in the Caribbean with the same dream; and we even formed regional authors’ groups. We achieved a lot; the Jamaica Library Service was supportive. Oh how confident we were! However, perhaps it wasn’t a bandwagon, but more like one of those old-time drays pulled by mules or  oxen, to be overtaken by. . . time . . . and . . . the excitement of technology.

Everyone gives lip service to the support for local children’s literature. However, although we  have a new generation of young publishers in Jamaica and the rest of the region, they seem to be facing the same frustrations we eventually did.

So what do we say are the challenges again?

1.       Low purchasing power/disposable income

2.       Small overall market in the region, hence low print runs, hence high unit costs, in the face of much cheaper foreign books

3.       Socialization to foreign children’s books, which traditionally were what we all read. So today, even the gatekeepers, who should welcome local books, cannot find it in their hearts or minds to purchase local/regional material.  Have we all been colonized, even those who were never governed or taught by overseas people? 

I am becoming convinced that this might not change much, ever.

However, what about the target audience? What part do they play? What does the target audience want? And who are they anyway?

Most of us writers have been writing what we consider to be contemporary Caribbean children’s literature for our children, so that they can know that they are important enough to be in books. In this endeavor, we have tried not to be too quaint. For the purposes of this  discussion, a definition of quaint might be ‘attractively unusual or old-fashioned’.  After all, our present-day children aren’t quaint; they live in a real world where there are computers, tablets and smart phones. Even if some of them don’t have these items personally, they interact with them in school. They face  very real lives with modern challenges. I think many of us find that our stories consist of the reality of today’s world set in an environment, which though it may have aspects of the quaint, this quaint is not for the sake of quaint, but only as it supports the setting of the story.  

We are convinced that our children want and should have contemporary stories and characters with contemporary concerns.

But are our children the target audience?

Or are the gatekeepers the real target audience, and are they a little bit afraid of what contemporary might mean, without sometimes actually reading the books?

And what of the overseas target audience, the diaspora about which we dream? ( “If this book could just get to the diaspora, man, I cool.”)

So yesterday when someone asked me how to find a book for a relative overseas to give to a child; ‘something like Anancy’, I replied, “Ah, - like folktales?” “Yes”  was the relieved reply.

And what is more quaint than Anancy and folktales? And when you are overseas, what is more nostalgic and suitable for young relatives divorced from this their ‘ancestral home’ than Anancy and folktales and quaint? And truly, I cannot argue with that. I’m sure that all displaced people, whether displaced willingly or not, long for that security of memory  -  made more delightful with passing years and distance -  of the quaint. The diaspora is probably not longing to read about contemporary children. And even if we consider the multicultural overseas markets, even if we could access it, I bet you they will just want the quaint. 

Please join the conversation.  In a future post I’ll look at some books by title, including the recent YA Burt Awards, which represent our latest regional achievements.