I reclaimed my love of reading in 2015 and since then, I have been exploring the diversity of reading options out there. Care to read about my adventures?
Contrary to our hopes for this year, the spectre of 2020 has followed us into 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging on across the world, and now a new, more infectious mutation of the virus that forced England into lockdown has already jumped borders and oceans. The year is already off to a bad …
WARNING: Mild spoilers ahead “For the kid scanning fairy tales for a hero with a face like theirs."And for the girls whose stories we compressed into pities and wonders, triumphs and cautions, without asking, even once, for their names.” Raybearer, dedication page Photo of Jordan Ifueko taken from jordanifueko.com Christmas came early for me this …
Continue reading Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko – The Legend of Tarisai the Just
This review was published in the Stabroek News' The Writers' Room on November 1, 2020. “My mother is a star, one of many bright jewels who sing praises in the skies, who view us from on high…She watches me now from her old throne, one more twinkle in the constellation Pushya, a figure as distant as the …
Continue reading Hindu cosmology as family drama – A review of Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar
It’s not often that a book excites me so much that it makes me want to write a persona blog post on top of a review. It's even rarer that a book makes me struggle to find the exact words I need to articulate what it means to me. I thought that this would just …
Continue reading Why I have hope for the Future of Caribbean Futurism – A personal Blog
Originally published in the Stabroek News Writers' Room Two weekends ago, I scratched something off my bucket list: I attended the Bocas Literature Festival. I was grateful that Bocas decided to keep the show on the road, pandemic or no pandemic, by opting to go fully virtual for its 10th anniversary. Although I was only …
Continue reading Reclaim, Restore, Return: A Teaser Trailer for Caribbean Futurist Fiction
Originally published in The Writer's Room in the Stabroek News In early February, while attending the Commonwealth Writers’ Workshop at Moray House, I was introduced to Nalo Hopkinson’s work. Our workshop facilitator advised me to explore Hopkinson’s work because of my interest in writing Caribbean speculative fiction: a literary genre of writing that covers everything …
Continue reading The World of Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber
From mid-December 2018 to now, I have been attending every literary event Moray House has hosted. I learned about Edgar Mittelholzer, A.J. Seymour, Egbert Martin and Ian McDonald. I learned about the contexts in which they wrote, about how they worked to promote our literary tradition here in Guyana. I even had the honour of …
Continue reading I saw the future today – My experience at the Commonwealth Writers Workshop
Originally posted on TurkeyenReviews2018. “It was her grandmother talking that Sunday evening when Caesar approached Cora about the underground railroad, and she said no. Three weeks later, she said yes. This time it was her mother talking.” pp. 8 The Underground Railroad is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead. It revolves around Cora, a …
Continue reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
I was drawn to The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by a Guardian Article in 2016 when the publication announced that Arundhati Roy was breaking her 20-year fiction hiatus and publishing a second novel. I was intrigued. I had come across Roy’s work near the beginning of my original reading challenge when I got a kindle sample …
Continue reading The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
"The firemen said there were little fires everywhere,” Lexie said. “Multiple points of origin. Possible use of accelerant. Not an accident.” (pg. 11) Over the last few months, the literary media has been gushing about Celeste Ng’s second novel Little Fires Everywhere. Once again, her work has climbed its way onto several bestseller lists and …
