Telling her tale

Nomad by Yvonne Weekes, published here by House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP), will launch in Barbados on August 13, by the country’s prestigious Frank Collymore Literary Endowment foundation, said HNP president Jacqueline Sample.

Dr Yvonne Weekes will share the limelight with writer Karen Lord, whose science fiction book, Unraveling, will be co-launched. Both authors are previous recipients of the celebrated Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award. The launch will take place in the Central Bank of Barbados’ Courtney Blackman Grande Salle.

In Nomad, Weekes opens her nomadic experiences in ways “which i nvva see before,” said world-renowned poet Kamau Brathwaite. The gritty and graceful poems of Nomad travel with the poet as an immigrant child in London; as a refugee fleeing with her young son from the Montserrat volcano eruption; to Barbados where she teaches theatre arts at The University of the West Indies.

  “Nomad is a survivors’ handbook and a travellers’ guide for anyone who has known the burden of a life bundled into bags,” said Jamaican performance artist A-dziko Simba Gegele.

“On August 20, Dr Weekes will be in Trinidad and Tobago to recite from Nomad at the CARIFESTA literary program,” said Nicholas Laughlin, programme director for NGS Bocas Lit Fest.   

Laughlin added that the reading of writers from across the region—at the Grand Market, Queen’s Park Savannah—will reflect on “the meaning of ‘Caribbean.’” The two-evening programme includes an extempore debate by kaisonians tackling the same topic. While in Port of Spain, Weekes will also attend the UWI Symposium entitled “Journey Around Myself,” from August 19 – 24, 2019.

The theme of CARIFESTA XIV, being held from August 16 – 25, 2019, is “Share. Connect. Invest”. CARIFESTA is the world’s largest pan-Caribbean cultural arts festival, with recent editions of the festival seeing interests from governments and organizations from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas seeking to send delegations.

“I’m happy for Yvonne Weekes and Nomad, for making such a heady literary movement between the Barbados launch and the CARIFESTA reading,” said the publisher.

Nomad is available at SPDbooks.org for Internet orders, UWI-Barbados bookstore, Van Dorp bookstore, and CARIFESTA 2019.