Why this secrecy over the Guyana Prize shortlist?

Aug 27, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Guyana Prize for Literature continues to be a matter of interest and concern. Having missed a sequence in 2008, the 2010 prize was judged in July 2011.
Soon after the judging exercise last month, the Prize Committee met with President Jagdeo, most likely to get a date for his availability for the award ceremony. The media carried the news that it will take place on September 1.
From then until now, no public announcement has been made of the short list for the Guyana Prize for Literature. Only yesterday (a full month after the judging) the Prize Committee sent a circularized e-mail to entrants informing them of the short list.
At the same time, one local newspaper only, announced the short list for the Caribbean Prize. The winners for both Prizes have no doubt been informed well in advance because they have to travel from far. Still, no public announcement of the shortlist for the Guyana prize.
Editor, please allow me to say this: In other countries where literary prizes are regularly managed (Commonwealth, IMPAC, Bookers, Orange, etc. you name it) a shortlist is announced immediately after the judging. This can be as much as three months prior to the award ceremony. The short list is generally eagerly anticipated because it gives the public the opportunity to obtain and read the shortlisted books before the winner is announced.
This is the whole idea of a shortlist. It is a sure way of raising the nation’s interest in literature, which is precisely why the Prize came into existence more than twenty years ago. If the short list is kept a close secret and we the young writers in Guyana cannot benefit from the prize in this way, then what is the use of the Prize?
It is another matter that the books are hardly ever available locally, and the Guyana Prize Committee has done nothing about that over the years, so I ask again, what is the purpose of the Prize and why continue it?
The short list would probably encourage the booksellers to stock the books named.
It is obvious that we in Guyana are habitually excluded from this prize in every way and we are left to wonder about the thinking of those who administer it.
It was the dismal state of the arts in Guyana that led President Hoyte to establish this prize to stimulate local writers but year after year we stand by and see the prizes carted off by foreign based Guyanese writers who have all the advantage in the world to outmatch us locally, with their superior degree
programs in writing and their access to publishers. Now big prizes are to be given to Caribbean writers who already have big prizes at their disposal. Trinidad has established the Bocas prize. It is high time some serious attention is paid to aspiring writers who languish in Guyana and a serious writing program with proven writers instead of the “quickie” run for a few days put in place.
When you think about the poverty in this degraded country, and all the other daily problems, it’s a downright shame and a sin to know that we cannot lift ourselves up even in this way which is what this Prize should do. Can the Guyana Prize Committee have so much disrespect for the Guyanese public?
There are a lot of glaring deficiencies surrounding this Prize and maybe the President will think about instituting a change before he quits office.
J. McDonald

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