Speaking for the ghosts of dead Caribbean writers…?By Michael Jordan A bitter?Sheik Sadeek?rails at?Martin Carter?over the fact that Carter’s work continues to be read, whileHarold Bascomhis is fading into oblivion.?Wordsworth Mc Andrew reads his famous ‘Ol Higue’ Poem; the Jamaican?Louise Bennett?chips in with her humorous, well-known ‘Love Letta’; a jovial and no longer blind?Ray Charles stops by, while the wraith of Trinidadian Geoffrey Holder dances among the dead…They’re a strange mix of artistic minds; the successful, the damned, and the fallen, but they all have one common bond: They’re the ghosts of dead writers, artists, and singers, all bound in a scary nether-world, in which even the little that is left of them may fade to nothingness, if the living don’t read?their work.They all congregate in the aptly named ‘Desperate for Relevance:’ A Surreal Drama of Dead Caribbean Writers Bound in a Curious Hereafter.’How they help each other, despite their conflicts; how even the seemingly damned find redemption, is at the heart of this riveting drama.It’s the latest work of prolific Guyanese dramatist Harold Bascom, and it’s this play for which he was recently awarded the Guyana Prize for Literature (2014) and the Guyana Caribbean Prize in the Best Book of Drama categories. It’s a heart-wrenching tale about the pitfalls of daring to follow the artist path; a path in which the reality, more often than not, fails to live up to the dream.When Sheik Sadeek’s wretched ghost wails: “WHEN WILL?MY?WORK BEGIN TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? WHERE DID I GO WRONG?” he speaks for every frustrated writer who seeks immortality through his work, but for whom success, on his terms, remains elusive.But as Bascom sees it, Sadeek’s lament is mainly the cry of the West Indian artist, particularly thoseArthur James ‘A.J.’ Seymourliving in an era when reading for the fun of it seems to be going out of vogue.In the preface to his play, Bascom harkens back to the sixties and seventies, when “there seemed to have been the comprehension of the importance of documenting the Caribbean experience in the forms of poetry, prose, and drama.During that period, there was voracious reading in the region. It was a period when many Caribbean novelists,China Cheap Jerseys, playwrights, and poets (along with the titles of many of their works) were household names. Back then, we gained much ground in the area of cultural identity as a Third World people through our writers and essayists. …“But what now? he asks. “The names of our numerous authors are rarely recognized or recalled. Maybe it’s a generational thing.”***********Kaieteur News spoke to Harold Bascom from his?Georgia, USA residence, shortly after he received news about his double-award. The interview, because of space constraints, is being published in two parts.KAIETEUR NEWS: Mr. Harold A. Bascom. You have just won the Guyana Prize for Literature for the fourth time, and you have also won the Caribbean Award for Literature. Congratulations! So, tell me:Martin CarterWhat was your reaction on learning that you had won not only in the Guyana Prize—the local prize, as some might call it, but the Caribbean Award as well?HAROLD BASCOM:?I’m going to be completely honest. My reaction was more or less a shrug. The truth is,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, just after I typed the word, ‘CURTAINS’ to end the play,Cheap NFL Jerseys 2016, I knew that I’d walk away with both awards.KN:?Can I ask where that confidence came from?HB:?It came from me understanding what Guyanese and Caribbean writers go through—in terms of how we are in our own societies—you know, as stupid people who chose to do something some see as stupid as wanting to be writers and artists and things like that. It came from me knowing that the judges would empathize with this problem of feeling irrelevant to our own Caribbean societies, in which we dare to write and for which we dare to write.My confidence came from knowing that I was addressing a common problem that transcended national borders in?Caricom?and the rest of the Caribbean: that problem of us, writers, feeling irrelevant to our own people, who often act as if they do not need us, but not realizing how much they do need us.KN: Would you say that the impetus to write this play sprung from your own frustrations?HB:?To answer that, let me quote from my preface to?Desperate For Relevance:?‘This work was hatched byLouise Bennetta personal angst: a growing fear of worthlessness as a writer in a society that is growing steadily away from reading and gravitating, for catharses, towards the audio-video channels entrenched in social media.?Desperate for Relevance?is a drama peopled by writers (a few that I have met), but mostly by writers that I have read and enjoyed, and continue to enjoy reading.’KN: How did the plot for ‘