Event

Campus Literature Week hosted by the Department of Liberal Arts will take place from March 1st to 5th 2010. This annual event was instituted in 1999. It has been the forum where writers in the Masters in Fine Art programme, as well as from the UWI and the wider society have showcased their work.

The MFA Programme hosts a Writer-in-Residence whose task is to give public readings, talk about his/her writing and about literature with our students, give television and print interviews to sensitize the public to his/her work and to generate public interest in literature. Over the decade, the department has hosted esteemed writers such as Earl Lovelace (1999, 2005, 2008); Olive Senior (2000, 2003); Jan Carew (2001); Austin Clarke (2002); Lawrence Scott (2004): Erna Brodber (2006): John Stewart (2007); and Rachel Manley (2009).

This year, 2010, the department is pleased to have guest writer: poet, essayist, novelist, playwright and short story writer, Ms M. NourbeSe Philip. Ms Philip is a graduate of The University of the West Indies (BSc Econ (1968)). She was born in Tobago and now lives in Canada where she practiced law for seven years and has since given it up to devote more time to writing. Although primarily a poet, she also writes fiction and non-fiction. She has published three books of poetry, Thorns (1980), Salmon Courage (1983), She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks (1988). She is also the 1988 first prize winner of the Tradewinds Collective prize (Trinidad and Tobago) in both poetry and short story categories.

Ms Philip’s first novel Harriet’s Daughter was published in 1988 by Heinemann (England) and the Women’s Press (Canada). Her second novel Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence was published in 1991. In 1995 Ms Philip was awarded the Toronto Arts Award in writing and publishing.

Foremost in her work are the challenges confronting Black women and girls, as well as issues of belonging, language and location.

The public may join the campus community for Lunchtime Readings each day from March 1st to 5th from noon to 1:30 pm at the Audio Visual Room, UWI Main Library. The Gala Reading takes place on Friday March 5th at 7 pm, at the Centre for Language Learning Auditorium, UWI St Augustine.

For further information please contact: Dr Giselle Rampaul at 662-2002 Ext. 3025 or Giselle.Rampaul@sta.uwi.edu; or Dr Geraldine Skeete 662-2002 Ext. 3029 or Geraldine.Skeete@sta.uwi.edu.