Dear Editor,
I am delighted to respond to Mr Al Creighton’s letter, ‘’Guyana Prize took variety of initiatives to assist writers living here”, published in sections of the media on July 12, 2018. He responded to my question about the delay of the award ceremony for last year; that’s a year now lagging behind because of a lack of funding from the Government. How does he expect me to know that, may I ask? Yet he compares this incompetent prize to literary awards abroad.
This Prize was established in 1987 by President Hugh Desmond Hoyte when this nation was actually the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, and one wonders why this Prize for Literature in a starving nation.
Maybe Desmond Hoyte had a motive to invite the literary brains that migrated abroad for publication and literary exposure. When Wilson Harris won the Guyana Prize in 1987, Mr. Hoyte asked Harris to remain here to work. Harris told Hoyte his offer was not lucrative enough. I believe Hoyte had a political motive behind the Guyana Prize for Literature, that’s why this new administration should scrap this Prize and use the money to educate our young scholars.
Since the inception of the Prize, in 1987, Mr Al Creighton has been the Secretary and Administrator of this Prize for 30.5 years. May I say he is the judge, jury, and executioner of this Prize? I don’t know of any award in this world which ever retains the services of one man or woman for over thirty years; and he is not even a born Guyanese.
My major contention with this award is the incestuous clique of judges alternating as judge one year then entrants/winners the next year, monotonously like a spinning perpetual ‘’yo-yo’’, and he has the mind to tell the Guyanese people that this practice of judges becoming entrants is a normal procedure with literary awards abroad. That is absolutely ridiculous! This man is deceived, and he is lying to our Guyanese people.
In my opinion, any literary award in the world where judges are alternating as entrants is a fraud that needs to be scrapped.
Editor, I am currently a judge for the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2018. I was sent from Cambridge University 12 pages of judging criteria for this award. The criteria is very confidential; no one in my family read it, and no relative or my children is an entrant. So, as a senior judge, how will it look if I submitted an entry next year for this award? I cannot, because I am barred from entering.
Mr Creighton cannot see the morality, ethics, and integrity of this spurious literary award, because he has compromised the standard of this award to give it to an incestuous clique of friends, along with some scapegoat incompetent writers here in Guyana who have written ‘’literary pornography’’ to receive US$5000 for ‘blue book’ literature.
I am calling for a CoI into this award. It is a fraud, and I am willing to take the stand against Al Creighton and his corrupt committee, to defend this award for the rights and dignity of our Guyanese writers who are robbed and cheated by corrupt and compromised judging. Maybe we need a referendum in Parliament to scrap this award. I am willing to debate it pro bono.
I wish to quote from a past Guyana Prize winner, Ryhaan Shah, from her Guyana Times Sunday Column of July 22, captioned ‘’Revamping the Guyana Prize’’. “‘The Prize appears to be controlled by cronies who alternate as judges and winners, thus keeping the Prize and monies awarded within a favoured clique. I had no interest in having my work judged by a prize committee whose integrity was questionable’’.
It takes a very honest mind to pen these words after reading this debate between myself and Mr Al Creighton.
This Prize, which costs millions, needs keen scrutiny from the Government. For the good of this nation, this Government must do the honourable thing and scrap The Guyana Prize for Literature.
Regards,
Rev. Gideon Cecil
(Author, Poet
& Literary Critic)
