Politics and failure in the mix

HERE are five more nominees for the 2018 Newsday People’s Choice TT Book of the Year at the NGC Bocas Lit Festival.

Michelle Ragoonanan-Ali, who wrote Oh Happy Day, is the founder of StaffPlus Solutions, an online recruitment company, as well as Caribbean Fiction Writers, an online community that inspires and promotes local and regional writers.

Michelle Ragoonanan-Ali

The result of many years of personal aspirations to become an author, Oh Happy Day, a collection of entertaining stories, is her first published book. But she is also the author of Little Adventures, another collection, but of children’s stories.

Oh Happy Day’s eight short stories feature a distinctive blend of the Trinidadian society, with each piece highlighting a typical rural life emergent through realistic situations and events with which the Caribbean diaspora can identify.

Ferdie Ferreira

Former politician, docker, commentator, political advisor and now political activist Ferdie Ferreira has produced his own book, Political Encounters 1946 to 2016.

Ferreira was a close associate of TT’s first Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams, and among the longest-serving members of the People’s National Movement (PNM), the political party founded by Williams.

The book features Ferreira’s insider accounts of his and the country’s political evolution, as well as the numerous articles published by him in daily and weekly newspapers. It also comprises stories of people, places, historical corrections and behind-the-scenes observations in the political scenario.

Michelle Borel

Michelle Borel, author of Soulspection: A Collection of Poetry, started writing at eight. Her poetry has appeared in international publications. Borel, also a radio personality, says to date her greatest accomplishments are, and will forever be, her three children Elijah, Chaydaa and Faith, who she says were her motivation for putting the compilation together. Having a rare blood condition known as Chronic ITP, Borel wanted to ensure that whether or not she was blessed with life, her children could always hear her heartbeat. She firmly believes in putting passion into action.

In 2016, she was feature speaker at the Writer’s Union National Poetry Day, and had the privilege of being the first Caribbean author to give a live reading aboard the largest ship in the world, Harmony of the Sea.

Soulspection is a collection of poems written by a woman who has been through much but gained even more. Here, she shares her emotions, her fears, and her failures.

Kevin Jared Hosein, who wrote The Repenters, is an award-winning writer who has published two books to date: Littletown Secrets and The Repenters, which is also a nominee for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award.

Kevin Jared Hosein

Hosein’s writings have been published in numerous outlets including Lightspeed Magazine and Moko Magazine. He also copped prizes in the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Caribbean) and the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, for his manuscript The Beast of Kukuyo (to be published in 2018).

In The Repenters, when the infant Jordan Sant is taken to the St Asteria Home for Children after the murder of his parents, he sets out on a journey that is a constant struggle between his best and worst selves. One relationship, with the young nun the children call Mouse, awakens the possibilities of love and hope, but when Mouse abandons her calling and leaves the home, the world thereafter becomes a darker place. When, barely a teenager, he runs away from the home to scuffle for a living in the frightening underbelly of Port of Spain, Jordan reaches the lower depths of both Trinidadian society and himself.

Cyril S. Matthew

Cyril Matthew’s The Story of Pan Am North Stars traces the history of one of TT’s top steel orchestras from its beginning in 1950 until the band’s demise in 1972.

The author was born in upper Bournes Road in St James, where the North Stars Steelband originated. After graduating from the Diego Martin Secondary School, he joined the Pan Am North Stars Steel Orchestra. He eventually became an executive member.

The book showcases the music of the band’s performances to audiences in the West Indies, South and Central America and in the United States of America. The top airline at the time, Pan American World Airways, used the North Stars Steel Orchestra to promote the airline and the music of the steelband.

For more info and to vote: bocaslitfest.com

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"Politics and failure in the mix"

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