I spent the first 19 years of my life in Guyana. I was born there, went to school there, earned a pay check there, fell in love there, and then ups an left for the United States. I have now lived away from Guyana for a longer time than I lived there. Does that make me an inauthentic Guyanese? And if so, when did I become that? On the flight coming over? One day after I left Guyana? One year after I left? Ten years later? Is it really possible (in some people's eyes) that the longer I live outside of Guyana, the less "authentic" (a rather offensive term, I might add) those first 19 years of my life will be deemed!!?
Is it really possible that my distance from the place of my birth will somehow render those 19 years irrelevant in terms of my identity? How I see myself? How I understand myself? How I see and understand the world? Let me go ahead and answer before some fool jumps in and says yes...absolutely not!
Those 19 years of my life spent living in Guyana make me as Guyanese as I feel.
But... (oh yes, Mr. Gilkes, there is a but, and yuh wrong to downplay it).
If, at this point in my life, I were to write a novel or some book where I purport to tell stories of my experiences (all fiction of course of course of course...of course), I would feel rather out-of-place, fake even, if my book were placed in the same category with writers who currently live in Guyana, especially if we were competing for a prize. Why? Because here in America, although the pool would certainly be much more competitive, I would have several writers' markets and opportunities available for me to utilize. My work could be considered "World literature," "Feminist," "Immigrant literature," "Anglo-Caribbean," "West-Indian," "Minority literature," even "Black-American" if I choose certain topics. All those markets would be available to me as a writer who lives here in the United States (legally). And the truth is, as dearly as I cling to the fast-fading, but very authentic existence I had for the first 19 years of my life, all of those categories would more aptly define who I am today, than just Guyanese.
So it would be fake, (yeah inauthentic), and dishonest of me to call myself a Guyanese writer, and sit my ass down comfortably among Guyanese writers who live, work, and write in Guyana for a non-existent marketplace, and a largely disinterested public.
Now don't get me wrong, eh; my writing in every one of those categories I pointed out would involve the fact that I started my life's journey in Guyana. But so much more of who I am as an adult is not just Guyanese anymore. And even though I would like to be accepted (by those for whom I care) as some version of a Guyanese woman, I know the truth, and I accept it fully.
But that's my story.
Here's what Guyanese-born writer, Michael Gilkes says about that:
Some time ago, in the benign shadow of the Guyana Prize for Literature, there was much talk (and some interesting discussion) about the Guyanese sensibility or ‘Guyanese-ness.’ The discussion came about because Guyanese who work abroad or have made another country their home have tended to win the Guyana Prize more often than ‘home-based’ Guyanese have.
There were outcries of ‘foul !’ from ‘locals’ who saw themselves as disadvantaged, given the real (or imagined) social comforts available abroad to ‘expatriate’ Guyanese writers. Resident Guyanese are writing at the barricades, as it were, economically depressed, besieged by difficulties of access to publishing houses, lack of opportunity for literary training and for creative writing grants to attend courses. They were therefore, so the argument went, more ‘Guyanese’ than the Guyanese ‘expats.’
Admittedly, the Guyana of today is not an environment in which writers can easily follow their urge to write. They are clearly at a serious disadvantage (the argument continues) and should therefore be given more encouragement and practical help so as to make the playing field less biased towards the ‘expats.’ Good. No one can argue with that. But to go on to suggest, as one or two writers have, that creative writing coming out of such conditions must, almost by definition, reflect a Guyanese sensibility more ‘authentic’ than that of an ‘expat’ Guyanese not physically involved in the everyday, down-to-earth life of the country is a dangerously limited, self-defeating argument, at best a case of special pleading. It’s like saying that ‘being black’ (another ill-defined concept) is a guarantee of black consciousness.
Worse, such an assertion assumes a consensus on what a Guyanese sensibility is and how it should be expressed, suggesting a parochialism bordering on self-quarantine: “You in the castle of your skin, I among the swineherd.”
What are the qualities that determine ‘Guyanese-ness’? These clearly have something to do with Guyanese living, on at least an extended basis (for how long?), in Guyana. But where in Guyana, and under what conditions? As swineherder or castle owner? As Amerindian rainforest dweller or urban coastlander? As poor or privileged? Those Guyanese who live only a few childhood years in the country (how many years does the formation of a Guyanese sensibility take?) before being whisked off to live elsewhere, or those who eventually opt to live and work abroad, cannot, the argument insists, lay claim to a truly Guyanese sensibility. READ ON.
And as Nicholas Laughlin suggests, it sounds like he talking to we friend Ruel.
