The Lit Bash at Jamaica's Calabash

Jamaica's famous Calabash Festival returned from a one-year hiatus to celebrate the Caribbean island's 50th independence anniversary with a great line-up of authors that included Nigeria's Chimamanda Adichie and the Jamaican National Book Award-winning writer and academic, Orlando Patterson. The festival ended successfully this past weekend, and in this blog post we have collated a number of reports.

Find photos and an ultra-short report over at Andre Bagoo's blog. A snippet:

Like the recently concluded Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, the programme featured a wide range of talent from the Caribbean, the diaspora and all over the world. Readers included Adichie, Jamaican writer and poet Olive Senior, Orlando Patterson, Victor Lavalle, and many more.

At Tallawah Magazine you can read about the Panama Canal and mosquitoes, as well as a short interview with Olive Senior and a longer one with Orlando Patterson. About his rise to literary prominence, Patterson says:

I saw my future mainly as a literary person, and I did quite well in England while I was a graduate student. I published my second novel and was publishing stories in all the major newspapers and so on, and I was doing reviews for the Times Literary Supplement. So I saw the trajectory primarily as one as a novelist. But there were times I was rethinking what I should be doing with my life because financially I felt a strong sense of responsibility to help look after my parents.

And finally, from the web pages of Jamaica's most respected newspaper, The Gleaner, comes this bit of info:

The Gleaner asked one of the organisers, Kwame Dawes, if the festival was on track for next year. He responded by saying although they were committed to carrying on the festival, it would be dependent on the funding. He, however, noted that entry for the event would remain free. Dawes said to host the event, approximately US$100,000 (J$8.7 million) is needed. So far, they have had a fund-raising dinner and they have instituted a system where people can donate money to the festival. Dawes said the Jamaica Tourist Board has supported the event and he is hopeful that they will get the required funding to continue the festival, not just from the tourist board, but in general.