"England suddenly felt tropical"

I took a phone call one mid-morning, when I was lazing in bed, wondering whether to get up and face the bleak wintry day. The phone call was the warm, lyrical voice of the Director of the Sabga Awards, telling me that I was their Arts and Literature laureate for 2008. Needless to say, England suddenly felt tropical, and I arose from my bed.

--David Dabydeen, speaking about his recently announced Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence, in an interview with John Mair in the Stabroek News.

SN: What does getting this award mean to you?

DD: It means that I can have a greater regional presence, in terms of access to media, individuals etc. It will also encourage me to visit more of the islands. It offers me a degree of protection against acts of malice. And I can buy crates of red wine as well.

The money will be spent on paying off some of my mortgage, so I can have a secure home on earth; some will be spent on the poor in Guyana, a kind of bribe to get to heaven.

Caribbean books on NBCC shortlist

More prizes.... this time the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Awards, the finalists for which were announced in San Francisco yesterday. There are no fewer than four Caribbean-related books on the shortlist: Edwidge Danticat's memoir Brother, I'm Dying and Junot Díaz's novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao--both of them CRB books of the year!--plus Trinidadian-American Arnold Rampersad's biography Ralph Ellision and Dominican-American Julia Alvarez's cultural study Once Upon a Quinceanera.

The NBCCA winners will be decided and announced in March.