This blog is still relatively new, and I have a ways to go to give a true "best of" list of books by Guyanese and other Caribbean writers. But I do want to celebrate the good writing I have read and written on during the year here at Signifyin' Guyana.
First, a word or two on the focus of this blog.
If you clicked on my "About" link, you would see this description of the interests of this blog:
Very basically, in Black American culture signifyin’ is slang used for examining and reinterpreting language in an indirect way. Through repetition and difference, implication and association, combining words and meanings, the signifyer’s goal is usually to create new meanings for old words and ideas. Read Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for more on that. This signifyin’ Guyanese woman who lives in the United States will facilitate a discourse on terms, words, definitions, ideas that concern many of us Guyanese in the Guyanese Diaspora. The goal is to examine them inside out, and possibly reinterpret them. To help achieve this goal of examination and reinterpretation, we will rely on our own significant though unpublished, unpolished opinions, as well as the published (and often polished) opinions of others. Join us as we learn, share, and entertain.
And, after a year of blogging, my clearer statement about Signifyin' Guyana's focus/interests is as follows:
After being disappointed in the scant and scattered information available online on Guyanese writers, I started this blog with the primary goal to give Guyanese writers significant, quality space, and visibility on the web by interpreting their words, and suggesting (in some cases) new ways (in addition to the existing interpretations/critique of their work) of understanding their work.
That sounds rather serious, but as you've seen, I've had fun doing it in all kinds of ways--from a high-ish brow academic standpoint, to as low-brow and dirty as I could get away with. The tone I take on with any given book always depends on the book itself.
I have added a secondary focus for this blog, which is to comment on, profile, and review books by other Caribbean writers. All this gives me a very full plate, which I plan on feasting on next year, and I hope you'll feast along with me.
Now on to my list of the best I've read this year.
BEST BOOKS
Best Novel:
The Hangman's Game, Karen King-Aribisala.
Best Short Story Collection:
Four Taxis Facing North, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw.
Best Collection of Poetry:
I Hear Guyana Cry, Balwant Bhagwandin
BEST INDIVIDUAL WORKS
Best Short Stories:
"April," Ruel Johnson (From Ariadne and other Stories).
"The Aviary," Ruel Johnson (From Fictions).
"Still Life: Bougainvilla and Body Parts," Mark McWatt (From Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement).
Best Poems:
"The Angels Warn," Balwant Bhagwandin (from I Hear Guyana Cry).
"How We Became the Pirates," Kei Miller (from There is an Anger that Moves).
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And, here's an early list of some of the books and Guyanese writers I plan on featuring and reviewing next year:
1. Janjhat, Rooplall Monar.
2. Pauline Melville.
3. Bethany Bettany, Fred D'Aguiar.
4. The Godmother and Other Stories, Jan Lowe Shinebourne.
5. Assassination Cry of a Failed Revolution, William Gregory Smith and Anne R. Wagner.
6. Edgar Mittelholzer.
[Books by and /or about other Caribbean writers to be announced]
