Antilles: the weblog of the CRB

Links, links, links

- The editorial on V.S. Naipaul that the Stabroek News ran last Tuesday has provoked a long response in the paper's letters columns from a writer named Abu Bakr (not, I hasten to add, the Trinidadian leader of the Jamaat Al-Muslimeen):

The fact is we no longer approach V S Naipaul in attendance of great insight into the ways of the world. We read him now only to observe the interplay of the persona he has crafted for himself with the characters that he moves around the chess board of his books. The tics, the sneer, the snide comments, the often very funny insults, the inexplicable bitterness....

- Meanwhile, reviews of Naipaul's latest book, A Writer's People, are still trickling in from around the world. Here's Nicholas Shakespeare in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Finishing this book, which ends on a critical note about India, I was reminded of an unpublished letter Bruce Chatwin wrote in 1986 to an Indian friend.

"It's about time people realised just how wonderful India is--not in the exotic sense--but day to day realities. Watching Manvendra here coping with the drought is the kind of thing that Mr Naipaul would never 'see'."

- Caryl Phillips's new book, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be getting much attention--this review of Foreigners by Jerome Weeks in the New York Sun is only the second one I've seen.

- Geoffrey Philp draws our attention to the many Caribbean writers participating in the Miami Book Fair International, which opens tomorrow (4 November): Opal Palmer Adisa, Marina Salandy-Brown, Jane Bryce, Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Edwidge Danticat, Oonya Kempadoo, Rabindranath Maharaj, Philip Nanton, Robert Edison Sandiford, Kim Robinson-Walcott, Anthony C. Winkler, and Geoffrey himself. Check the book fair website for more information about schedules and programmes.

- And Tobias Buckell has some very nice things to say about Lisa Allen-Agostini's review of his new novel Ragamuffin in the November CRB.