Social Cohesion Minister Dr George Norton, holder of the portfolio for culture, youth and sport, has accepted that he has responsibility for the prestigious Guyana Prize for Literature.
Flashback: Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo (fifth from left) is flanked by the 2015 Guyana Prize for Literature awardees from (left to right) Subraj Singh, Stanley Niamatali, Maggie Harris, David Dabydeen, Barbara Jenkins, Eddie Baugh and Al Creighton who represented Harold A Bascom
Speaking to the media on Monday, he observed that he would be updating Cabinet on the matter, as opposed to formally responding to the ongoing issue.
Minister Norton indicated that he has taken issue with the public disclosures in the press, and observed that he would not be engaging letter writers.
“Every day, in response to a report, other areas are being unearthed. So I don’t want to give a half-answer or half coverage of the whole issue, but what I will do is report to cabinet on the present situation,” he promised.
The prestigious award was supposed to be held in July of 2017, with March 31, 2017 being the deadline for submissions. Guyana Times had reported that Government did not release funds to the Guyana Prize for Literature Committee, which halted the hosting of the event in 2017, but Secretary to the Committee, Al Creighton, later explained that the submissions were still being judged, and promised the awards ceremony would be hosted later in 2018.
In recent disclosures to the press, persons are in fact questioning whether the award recipients are mostly overseas-based writers, as opposed to writers who reside locally. Another issue raised was that writers submitted entries one year and would judge the following year and would win the award in “a monotonous revolution”.
However, Minister Norton maintained that he would not respond to disclosures in the various letters published in the press. “I have a mandate to respond, to bring everybody up to date, but what happened is the persons who will give me the information are already responding to these letters, and I don’t want to do that. I am waiting to get as much information as possible,” he stressed on Monday.
After reports about withholding funding in the media surfaced, Minister Norton denied that this was so, but he had alluded to the “financial implication” of hosting the event.
The Guyana Prize is awarded to writers of Guyanese nationality in several different categories. These categories include Best First Book of Poetry, Best First Book of Fiction, Best Book of Poetry, Best Book of Fiction and Best Book of Drama. Additionally, the Guyana Prize also awards Books of Poetry, Fiction and Drama in separate categories for Caribbean writers.
The Guyana Prize was established in 1987 to provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing among Guyanese in particular, and Caribbean writers in general. The Prize is for published books, and is open to works by citizens of Caribbean countries: Caricom States, the Commonwealth Caribbean, and the Netherlands Antilles.
