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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 14 MAY, 2017
Writer, creative writing tutor, playwright,
literary activist, PhD student,
Courttia Newland
is a multiplicity of identities so it’s unsurprising
that when he sat down to talk to
UWI TODAY
correspondent,
Jeanette Awai
, about his role as
Department of Literary Cultural and
Communication Studies’ (LCCS)
Writer-in-Residence and featured speaker for their
19th annual Campus Literature Week
, the conversation
spanned the gamut from the Caribbean roots of the black British; to the celebratory confidence of UWI’s Creative Writing MFA students and
why privileging the Shakespearean canon over contemporary writers of colour is much ado about nothing.
LITERATURE MATTERS
NewLands
of the
I M AG I N AT I O N
“I think writers like Selvon, Naipaul, Lovelace,
they did certain things that allow us as the newer writers to do different things.
We can start to be experimental and I’m seeing that happening here.”
What has been your experience as this year’s Writer-in-Residence?
I wanted to wait and see in terms of what was going to happen. I’ve been to Trinidad
before and had an idea of Trinidadian culture in London and what to expect, but I really
wanted to know what Trinidadian culture is now. People are patriotic, but still exploring
different ways of writing about being in Trinidad; it’s exciting times to be here. I think the
Writing-in-Residence programme is pretty amazing. I don’t know many universities with
this kind of programme, to be honest. I think the idea of having international writers
coming in has been really beneficial for me – I’ve been writing my next novel, TV stuff
for BBC and trying to work on a screenplay, all based in Britain. So the programme is
excellent.
Your bio mentions you are British writer of
Jamaican and Barbadian heritage, can you talk
about your experience growing up in the UK?
The UK is filled with the children of Caribbean immigrants. When
I was growing up, the UK didn’t claim Jamaican/Bajan duality or
hybridity so I just thought I was Caribbean because I was raised
in a Caribbean household; then I went to Barbados and realized
I had an accent so maybe I am English? I decided to own it.
A lot of your work mentions the
Caribbean, how is Caribbean
literature received in the UK?
There’s a strong Trinidad-London
connection, remember all the mainstays
of the UK civil rights movement – Frank
Critchlow, Darcus Howe, who recently
passed, John La Rose – all Trinis. So black
British culture is deeply rooted in Caribbean
culture, it’s a fusion of what modern Britain
is and was. Caribbean people run and ran
everything from the working class and wider
mainstream, even the music. In terms of the
Caribbean literature scene, I think writers like
Selvon, Naipaul, Lovelace, they did certain
things that allow us as the newer
writers to do different things. We
can start to be experimental
and I’m seeing that
happening here. But, I think
